Lissandra did not feel very good. Something was wrong with her. It had started the day after Longleg bit her in the arm. The little spider had never done anything like it before. Neither did Longleg behave in the way Liss was used to. If truth be told, Lissandra had started to become scared of her tiny pet.

All the strange man’s gifts were poisoned. Liss knew that now. She was back on her little hill but her house was still a ruin from when Oga had torn it apart. The mushrooms tasted funny. And out past the barrier where the trees could not encroach upon now everything was bloody red as it had been before on the inside, which had shocked her so. Liss still had to see this cursed colour every day and it hurt her eyes.

There were stretches of day Lissandra could not remember. She would suddenly blink and be in an entirely different spot than before. Still on her hill, of course, but just today she had been harvesting mushrooms the one moment and stood aimlessly amidst her ruined hut in the next. More than that, sometimes she could hear herself whisper strange things, evil things, full of hate. And Longleg liked it.

The bite had swollen and started to itch. Then a tingling sensation had crept up her arm, followed by a dark red line under her skin. It was queer. Lissandra knew no potions against this particular ailment, so she only mixed a poultice against the itching and hoped the rest would just go away.

This proved true within a few days, but at the same time did other symptoms occur, strange and bewildering and utterly new to her. Next to the loss of memory she discovered that scales had started to form on her skin where Longleg had bitten her. Then her fingers started to hurt right under the nails. They cracked and turned yellow, then darker, and seemed to grow both in length most of all in thickness. They were becoming round, almost like claws.

Next, Lissandra’s hair was falling out from her armpits and between her legs. One moment it was there, and the next time she scratched herself her hand came back full of it. The hair on her head felt strange too. It wasn’t falling out but it felt as though it was becoming leathery, somehow, sticking together, and sometimes she felt like she could feel with it as though it had become skin.

No one visited her during all this time, though. There was no one she could have asked for advice.

Her teeth started to hurt next. There was nothing she could do about it, it just hurt, everywhere, soon radiating into her eyes and nose and then the rest of her skull. It wasn’t long hereafter that she could no longer get up on account of the pain.

She was like this for a long time, lying on her back with Longleg sitting, waiting over her on one of the few shelves she had left.

Lissandra did not understand. She just wanted everything back to the way it had been. But that hope seemed forlorn now.

And when she thought she might perish from thirst, suddenly Longleg stood over her, huge, black with her eight long legs, and with the upper body of the most disgustingly white woman Lissandra had ever seen.

-

Old, tall and grey, the steward of Winhall stood. His blue eyes looked at Laura and Janna not so much with malice but surprise. When he was told who they were, he seemed incredulous only for a moment. Farindel explained it all away, as if nothing was impossible if one invoked the fairy.

“She’s done you a great service,” he told his master, Bragon Fenwasian. “But how curious that she does not allow them to die. Does she intend to teach them a lesson? Or does she intend to use them for her work?”

The idea was frightening to Laura. She did not want to be used, especially not by something so weird and ominous.

Bragon Fenwasian said nothing, and neither did any of the others speak, save a few whispers. There was a great congregation at the castle gates of Whispermoor, the garrison, the servants, the cooks, everyone had come. There were far more people than Laura remembered. Of course, the last time she had come here, there had only been the Moorwatch, a funny bunch of hard-bitten warriors who slew the red beasts that still from time to time rose out of the bog, probably spawned by that red trickle she had seen back then. Now, the situation had changed dramatically, with the Red Curse back in earnest but also Bragon back with his army and Rodowan Ahawar with his refugees.

“You sacked Winhall together,” Rodowan addressed them calmly. “But only one of you went on to ravage the county. Which one of you was that?”

Laura pressed her lips together and lowered her gaze. Somehow, the way she remembered it, she had felt at the time that it would come back to haunt her. She might be misremembering, projecting all that now. But she did feel a sense of genuine regret over what she had done.

Not for the people, though. She didn’t really care about them. But she hated the consequences.

“Allow me to ask then,” the steward continued, the corners of his mouth turning into a smile, “what did you feel when you learned that I had saved thousands from you, leading them away from your feet?”

It was a difficult question, Laura found, and somehow very personal. She wondered whether she should tell the truth, or whether she should even answer at all.

“I thought you were very clever,” she told him reluctantly. “But then again, you saved me from having to kill even more of your people.”

The flicker in his smile made it occur to her that he was gloating, so she decided to be cocky.

“Even still, I’ve flattened a great number of your folk, and eaten my fill too. Must have been some friends of yours went through my gut.”

She pointed at her belly with her chin, just for emphasis, while Janna stirred and kicked her against the leg. Rodowan Ahawar did not react angrily, unlike quite a few others. Some hissed, others cursed, and one man stepped forward and spat a thick gob of phlegm at Laura.

He missed, but his betters were on his case at once and had him apprehended. This distraction was used by yet another man, a simple soldier by the looks him, who sped forth with a dirk in his hand, a mean piece of grey steel, glinting in the torchlight.

There was hardly any time to react and she still had her hands bound in any case, so there was no stopping him when he plunged the point of his weapon into her chest. She could tell immediately that he had tried to ram it into her heart, but her T-shirt stopped it. It had shrunk as well and appeared to be still as strong as it had been when it was huge like her. In fact, it was so strong that the tip of the blade broke off, much to the anger of her assailant.

He stared incredulous at the dirk for a moment before ramming what was left straight through her eye. On her right ear, Laura could hear Janna scream. On her left and a little further away, it was Devona. She went blind and felt an incredible pain before her whole body went numb for a moment, and then found herself with her face on the ground and the dagger growing out of her eye. Another moment later it was as though she had never been hit, even her eyesight unaffected.

“Fool,” Bragon Fenwasian said. “You cannot kill them. I’ve tried. Fall back in line.”

The dishevelled murderer went unpunished but also frightened for his life by the looks of him. The whole affair gave the assembled garrison something to think and whisper about, like a swarm of angry flies.

“For what it’s worth,” Laura told Rodowan Ahawar as a strong hand pulled her back to her feet, “I regret destroying your county. All those deaths served nothing in the end.”

‘It sure as shit was fun, though.’

Being big was awesome, looking down on the world from above, stepping on and destroying anything she liked or didn’t like. The feeling of simply flattening people as they ran or grovelled for their lives was a very rousing sensation. She had been like a god to them. Or even more than that.

“Well, you haven’t destroyed all of it,” the steward of Winhall smiled. “Thanks to me, we are able to start anew. Heh, now I have moved everyone back north, and right under your nose, too. And here you are now, small and at the mercy of my lord. Praise be to Farindel!”

“Praise! Praise be to her!” The men echoed.

Then, absurdly, someone started to sing, and they all joined in in an instant: “Mercy, mistress of the wood, we who set in your realm our foot! Coill banríon, Coill banríon, Coill banríon, Coill banríon! Guide us on with every breath, many soul found here their death! Coill banríon, Coill banríon, Coill banríon, Coill banríon! Olden pact by Madalight, we obey for so it’s right! Coill banríon, Coill banríon, Coill banríon, Coill banríon, Coill banríon...”

It was the opposite of good, off-key, ill-tempoed and made wholly unsalvageable by one very, very untalented flutist trying to join in. Had Laura been big, she would have squashed everyone present just for making her listen to it.

Perhaps the genius of Garvin Blaithin had spoiled her, overblown her expectations. That was the reason his death made her so sad. His singing and music had been genuinely enjoyable, which in her mind turned him into a remarkably valuable man. There were no mp3-players or stereos around, after all. Plus, she felt genuinely bad for his kids.

The terrible song faltered and died off eventually, upon which Count Bragon seemed to become aware of the cold. It was getting worse, perhaps because it was getting colder in general or just because the night was getting darker. He ordered celebrations be had regardless, and for Janna and Laura to be led inside.

“Have them serve you at table, My Lord!” A man at arms suggested enthusiastically. “Show them how it feels to bow and scrape!”

The count did not seem to think that worthy of a reply, but Ian Fenwasian said: “Aye, just what we need, for these unkillable monsters to get hold of a knife!”

Whispermoor was not a particularly nice castle. It was small, crude, crammed, and not built to accommodate so many. Everything smelled of bog and the floors were muddy. Nevertheless was this the first time Laura got a look of a castle’s interior at the proper proportions. Beyond the gatehouse there was a round drum tower to the left and a pentagonal Bergfried on the opposite side, large stone buildings that had an undeniably imposing effect on the beholder, doubly so in front of the starlit sky. Laura was aware that every stone, every rock and every last bit of mortar had been put there by hand, which was impressive despite everything. The yard was filled with horses too, huddled under their blankets for which Laura envied them.

The main house, which they entered, seemed more like an oversized barn on the outside, with whitewashed walls that were dirty and somewhat in disrepair and a slanted roof to run the rain off. If she had hoped that it would be nice and warm inside, then she was wrong, for there were hardly any fires or torches. On the other hand was the castle extremely well stocked with food. It was virtually everywhere, hanging on the bare stone walls instead of tapestries, barrels stacked on barrels, baskets of items such as vegetables, berries, mushrooms and fruit, sacks of grain and flour, bushels of straw...

Soldiers' sleeping gear littered every corner as the small castle was so packed that nigh every inch of floor had to be used at night. In fact, as everyone streamed inside after them, Laura soon got the feeling of attending a house party with rather too many guests.

Laura and Janna were placed on a bench with the wall at their backs and two spearmen watching over them while the preparations for the late ad hoc feast commenced.

“You really gotta pay attention to what you say,” Janna whispered as soon as they sat. “There's no need to rile them up like that!”

Laura gave a shrug. If truth be told, she understood the sentiment but couldn't help that being a little bit mean made her feel better.

“What are they going to do?” She asked. “They can't kill us.”

“Mh, they can hurt us, though,” Janna said sourly. “I for one wouldn't like to give them a reason to torture us in perpetuity or maybe burn us or something.”

Laura had to swallow at that. Yes, being burned in this condition might be even worse yet than her hanging. She was becoming tolerant towards pain rather quickly, though. It was just a feeling, one she could force herself to ignore even if it was uncomfortable.

She changed the subject: “What are we gonna do now, go for a knife as they said?”

They would have to lose the fetters for that, which would require a ruse. Maybe they could ask to use the privy.

Janna shook her head: “There are too many of them. Besides...”

“Even if we make it out, we're still tiny,” Laura finished bitterly.

“This is normal-sized, Laura, we're simply no longer huge!”

Of course, Janna had to be stupid and righteous about it.

“You think Furio could turn us back?” Laura asked. “Where is he, I mean, Devona and Ardan are here, right?”

There evidently had passed a lot of time outside of the Farindel, even while they had been only briefly inside. Like as not, everybody at Honingen had been celebrating nonstop that Janna and Laura were gone, including that dozy dope head of a wizard. Laura was just curious whether Janna was able rationalize it. But she got it all wrong.

“You’re right!” She cheered. “Furio can help us! He'd never let us down!”

Quite what exactly the two of them had gone through to make them so close, Laura did not know. Part of her regretted not having squashed the wizard a while ago. He was at least partially to blame for Laura’s Albernian campaign having become so convoluted and derailed. He had gotten injured at the time, and Janna had to carry him back to Nostria. They should have put him out of his misery instead.

‘One little pop.’

“He's not here, though.” She noted.  

The Moorwatch would not be inclined to help either, not after Laura's political cleansing. If memory served, she had crushed two young Fenwasians here, just outside the gates. The fact that she had otherwise been positively disposed to the Moorwatch changed little.

Janna remained unwavering: “He will come.”

The feast, meanwhile, was beginning to shape up. There was scarcely more than bread on the large old table in the hall, but the mass of men standing around heated up the air considerably and beer was being poured liberally into each soldier's personal cup or tankard, be it made of wood, pottery, horn or metal. There was a strong sense of communal sharing, but also a pecking order. While manoeuvring through the crowd, men of seniority had the right of way and received beer first, at least among commoners. Social status seemed to regulate the rest, and men stuck to their peer groups as much as possible.

It was also notable that everyone present was male. It seemed that Laura, Janna and Devona were the only women in the castle, a thing that started to become of concern given the ferocity with which some of the men were drinking on a presumably empty stomach.

“It's a complete sausage fest,” Laura mentioned her observation, leaving the rest implied.

She could feel Janna shiver on the bench next to her and felt a little sick to the stomach herself at the prospect. Laura had never experienced sexual violence, at least from the receiving perspective. All her life she had acted mostly unconcerned among men. She had enjoyed her fair share of boyfriends and one-night stands, even a threesome or two, but the worst thing she had experienced this far in that department had been a somewhat inexperienced or overeager lover.

“If someone’s gonna do something, it won't be here,” she tried to lend Janna some confidence. “Bragon will cut their dicks off if they try anything.”

The count of Winhall was handsome enough but also struck Laura as cold, humourless and prude, based on what she had seen and heard of him. How such a man could have sired a living angel like Devona was beyond explanation.

“You sure?” Janna asked. “He didn't even punish that guy who tried to murder you.”

Laura forced a smile: “See, that’s a sentiment he can understand. On the other hand, you saw how rough they were with the guy who spat at us.”

That one had been apprehended and forcefully removed from the scene, although if there had been any punishment after that, Laura did not know.

“Spat at you, you mean,” Janna corrected.

Laura shook her head and wanted to say something but ultimately let it slide. It was a shitty hill to die on.

“I'd kill for a beer,” she said instead, watching two men quaff their tankards in competition to the merriment of everyone around even though half of the hoppy beverage ran down from the corners of their mouths and into their clothing.

The wastefulness of it didn't really make sense.

“How come you are so well supplied here?” Laura turned to the guard closest to her. “Where's all this food and drink from?”

The man looked down at her with nothing but disdain in his eyes: “You can't have any.”

The guard on the other side of the bench chuckled: “Oh, ho, ho, our Lord steward outwitted you again. He took the wagons that were meant for Honingen and used them for us instead, heh, heh, heh!”

Laura had to swallow her anger and was left wondering whether Franka and Turon knew about this, perhaps secretly working against her. For Franka, however, such an undertaking would likely have been too dangerous, and of Turon's loyalty she was relatively certain.

Then again, people in societies like this often did reckless and brazen things, not to mention treacherous ones. It was in their primitive nature.

“Do not talk to them,” said the first guard. “Nothing good comes of talking to prisoners!”

‘Spoken like one who has let prisoners escape,’ Laura thought, studying the man from below.

He was short and squat and had a big jaw with sagging jowls, making him look somewhat like an especially stupid bulldog.

“Afraid of girls, eh?” The second guard smirked. “Well, I don't blame you. If I were as ugly as you, I'd be too.”

This one was younger, comelier and judging by his vocabulary decidedly smarter than the other man. Laura chewed her lip trying to figure out what to do with this information.

“You don't make me angry,” said the stupid man, but awkwardly left it there with no rebuke following.

“I need to go to the privy!” Laura announced quickly before their unequal fight could settle.

What she would do there, she didn't really know yet. She didn't really have to go, either.

“Shit yourself then!” The older guard told her, most unkindly.

If she had hoped that the other man would jump to her rescue, she was sadly mistaken. He only laughed.

She pictured a privy as an outcrop of wall with a wooden bench or some such seat that had a hole in it, allowing the refuse to freely plummet to the ground. If the hole was anywhere as large as a modern toilet seat then she could have dived in and let herself fall. It would have hurt and she might have landed in a pile of faeces, but at least she might have been free.

If the privy at Whispermoor truly looked the way she imagined was little more than speculation at this point, but she felt she had to do something.

“Men!” The voice of Rodowan Ahawar bellowed from the other side of the hall. “Find your places now, the feast is about to commence!”

“This is my first time I am at a feast,” whispered the comely man. “Makes me feel like a lord!”

“You're not a lord!” hissed the other. “We're on guard duty!”

With everyone pressing to the sides Laura and Janna were finally afforded a much clearer view of what a medieval feast looked like. The seats at table were reserved for important people, Count Bragon, his steward, daughter and son in law at the elevated head of it and knights as well as choice warriors further below. Count Bragon took a pinch of salt with his fingers and sprinkled it over the steaming bowl in front of him, then passing the salt to his daughter who did the same.

The food was scarce, hastily prepared and raw or reheated far as Laura could tell. The feast was a symbolic act of celebration rather than proper eating, and the main object of desire was liquid and intoxicating rather than filling.

Nevertheless could she not deny how hungry she was at this point, and thirsty too.

“Farindel has made us a great gift tonight!” Rodowan Ahawar gestured while Laura and Janna were pulled to their feet.

“Aye!” The men shouted and cheered, along with a number of other calls that drowned out each other.

Laura was pushed forward by her guard, presented for inspection like a cow upon the market and for everyone to ogle at like she was just some thing. Hundreds of eyes were upon them and small men stood on their toes to get a better view.

“She!” The steward had to shout to make everyone calm down. “She has given us the giant beasts that have so ravaged our homeland, and has shrunk them down too, to much more manageable proportions!”

That drew laughter and more calls, which Laura now understood were very rude and gory.

The steward spread his hands: “Alas, she has not equipped us with the means to kill them! Why?”

“So we can torture them!” A hateful man screamed at the top of his lungs, louder than any other suggestion.

Rodowan Ahawar laughed and spread his arms once more: “I do not know why. It is not for us to question the mistress of the woods! As she has done, she has done with good reason! We trust in Farindel, and so we pray!”

It was a queer scene that unfolded next as chairs scraped upon the stone floor and everyone stood upright. At the same time, it became very quiet. Men folded their hands and lowered their gazes, each mumbling their own prayers, some more enthusiastically than others. Such was the way of religion and probably what separated it from common superstition. The latter was generally more tightly held.

When the prayer was over, Bragon Fenwasian was the first to sit. It was the signal for everyone to resume their boozing, even though the space in the middle of the hall was not refilled so as not to impede the view of those better men at table.

Platters of sausages and chunks of ham and bacon were passed amongst the standing crowd, men grabbing what they could if only to shove the majority of it into bags and pockets. At the table, soup was being spooned instead of proper trenchers with meat and gravy, but Bragon assigned different portions of meat and fish as he saw fit.

“I’m hungry,” Laura complained to her guard as much as to Janna.

This earned her a painful clout over the head as well as a return to the bench for both of the girls.

If truth be told, it was a form of torture in and of itself to be sat there watching other people eat and drink to their hearts content while being left starving. This was another thing Laura had never really experienced herself. She hadn’t grown up in abject luxury, but not dirt-poor either. And as a giantess she had been able to get anything she wanted, provided it was somewhere within reach.

From the opposite end of the hall, Devona Fenwasian suddenly looked over, touched her father on the arm and whispered intently into his ear. His face never changed but when she was done, his eyes sought a platter on the table before instructing one of his knights with a few words.

The knight did not like what he heard, but all the same he stood, took the platter and began coming over, like a common servant. From what Laura could see, however, it seemed that the platter was filled with sticks, thin branches of trees with the bark still on. She thought to be the subject of some cruel jape.

But that assumption proved false. The sticks were skewers, each impaling a thick, greasy piece of mutton.

“Drink too,” the knight grunted in disgust while offering the food to Janna and Laura. “And if you lay a hand on them again you'll lose a finger.”

The guard who had struck Laura gasped stupidly, and worse yet he did not get what the knight wanted him to do.

“Their hands, oaf!” The other, already at work on Janna's ropes, hissed. “Do you expect them to eat like pigs?”

The knight shook his head: “You lot would have me stand here all night long, wouldn't you, like an utter fool.”

Janna thanked the guard who had unbound her hands and soon Laura had hers back as well. They took as many skewers as they could without dropping them, sinking their teeth into the meat at once. It was lukewarm, very salty and not thoroughly cooked, but Laura wolfed it down all the same.

“Heh, wouldn't you know it, they do eat like pigs.” The knight noted. “Make due on the ale before they choke themselves.”

Laura didn't know or particularly care whose tankard was shoved into her hand, and she didn't care whether it was beer or vomit in it. She washed down bite after bite, thinking in her head what a wonderful human being Devona was.

She already felt much better.

“Being nice goes a long way,” Janna rubbed it in between bites. “If we had treated everyone like we did Devona...”

“Too many ifs in that sentence,” Laura cut her off without looking.

What was done was done. They couldn't very well unsquish or uneat the tens if not hundreds of thousands they had killed. And even if they had behaved like docile lambs from the very beginning, all that would left them was starving.

Thinking of her gruesome achievements gave Laura an idea, however.

“I wish to treat with Count Bragon,” She told the knight who was turning to go. “I have an offer for him that he will want to hear.”

The man shot her a glance over the shoulder, sighed and moved on.

“And what might that be?” Janna asked in English. “What do we have that he wants?”

‘Well, I could suck his dick,’ Laura thought, imagining the scene before her inner eye.

A prude man such as him had probably never even experienced a blowjob. But that was also why it wouldn’t work.

She ignored Janna and observed the knight making his way back to his seat instead. Then, the moment. The knight sat and leaned forward, talking to his liege upon which the latter looked over to meet Laura's gaze. Bragon's face was a cold, eerie mask. He took a sip of wine before resuming his conversation with Rodowan Ahawar.

“What’s this about?!” Janna demanded sharply.

Laura shrugged: “Nothing. It didn't work.”

Being small was awful and miserable. There was nothing she could do about it. Worse yet, once the mutton was eaten and the beer drunk, Laura found herself still hungry, although her thirst had gone away somewhat. Neither did the alcohol make the situation more bearable. She had tasted that the beer was strong, albeit somewhat stale. But she did not feel the slightest hint of intoxication.

She looked about the room for what felt like the hundredth time that evening, finding that her eyes were growing heavy. The warmth, both in terms of temperature and Devona Fenwasian's kindness, had put her more at ease. But that didn't change her predicament.

The white-haired man sat at the table amongst the more valuable of Bragon's pets, drinking wine. He had been bewitched by Farindel, if his tale could be believed. Perhaps he knew a way out of it as well.

Just now would be a good time to speak with him, red-faced, drunk and swaying in his seat as he was. He might divulge the most intimate secrets.

To relieve themselves, men left the hall for a time before coming back. Maybe now that she had Devona's favour they would allow Laura to do the same. But she had to wait for the old man's kidneys for that to be fruitful.

“These aren’t ladies, they're monsters,” Laura overheard a conversation nearby. “He ought to pass them around the garrison. They can't die, aye? All the better! We can fuck them till Nameless day!”

A deeper voice cautioned: “I’d keep my hands off ‘em, lest ye wake up a gelding. You know how he gets with the women. It's his sweet daughter! He's so worried about her in the clutches of that old harridan, he sees her face in every wench.”

“The king will sort out that spinster, see if he don't,” said a third man. “He'll come back on his white horse and set the realm to rights!”

The first man scoffed drunkenly: “The king who ran. Where is he? We've won his war for him, and he is nowhere to be found!”

“He had to run,” objected the other, “else the monsters would've crushed him like they did everyone!”

‘True,’ Laura reflected dreamily.

If she had gotten Finnian into her clutches she would've turned him into a grease spot, provided Janna didn't get in the way. Squashing powerful people was fun, and the things she would do to Bragon Fenwasian, Rodowan Ahawar and a number of others made her giddy with anticipation.

If only she could grow big again!

“Let's rather talk about something else,” one of the men mumbled, presumably sensing that someone was eavesdropping on them.

“Laura,” Janna touched her by the arm, and Laura realized that Bragon had risen and was coming over.

He wore a long cloak, black as night and immaculate, black boots, black britches, black doublet, only a golden thistle pin lending a little bit of colour. He looked like a dark ghost the way his long-legged strides seemed to levitate him over the distance, an evil spirit come to haunt her.

His face was hard, handsome and expressionless but there was something about his eyes that Laura found unsettling. There was another kind of darkness in there, a bright kind, chaos and madness, unwavering determination.

To encourage herself, she tried picturing him naked, but that proved only more intimidating.

‘Tiny, though,’ she thought. ‘How absurd if I met him while I was still large and could've shoved him up my ass.’

It just didn't seem to compute, like dividing by zero, but then again from ninety meters tall he wouldn’t have looked half so frightening. And she had dealt with men like him before, like when she resolved the Hedge Feud. She didn't even recall the bad guy's name in that instance, only the manner in which she had disposed of him. Picturing Bragon Fenwasian as a flattened imprint of himself helped a lot.

He was flanked by his wretched steward Rodowan Ahawar, and his daughter Devona on the other side.

“My lord!” She hailed him. “I want to make a deal!”

His cold grey eyes studied her, no hint of his emotions.

“Let us go, my lord,” she went on. “Help us become big again! In exchange, I will make you king of Albernia!”

Devona gasped, Rodowan laughed heartily, but the Count of Winhall still showed no hint of a reaction.

‘This motherfucker should try poker,’ Laura thought. ‘He'd make a fortune.’

She continued: “I will stomp your enemies out of existence and lend my strength to whatever cause you will. I'll help you defeat the Red Curse if you so require! On this, you have my word!”

He looked at her for a moment longer before inclining to his steward: “Cells, I think. And chains.”

He turned to go like a black shadow, cloak swirling, and Devona left them with an apologetic look.

“Hm,” Rodowan Ahawar chuckled. “It would seem the issue of where to bed them is finally resolved.”

-

Boats had been made useful to Dari because houses on riverfronts and bridges were often less well defended on the water's side. That being so, no Garethian waterway had ever been as wild, treacherous and miserable as this blasted river.

She had mastered Laura's test of her skills while afraid for her life, but as she calmed and got to thinking, contemplating the absurd complexity of her task, she grew distracted and promptly ran her boat aground on a shallow, almost capsizing the vessel in the process.

She was better supplied than when she set out to kill the Chosen One. But the large bag Laura had given her would also weigh her down once on land, and she pictured herself dragging it alone and freezing through the thicket of Andergastian woods, just waiting to become fodder for bears, wolves or even worse things.

To say nothing of the task itself, which was sheer madness. In ogre-controlled lands, she had to locate Steve and Christina, two complete strangers, fairly easy to recognize and undoubtedly under heavy guard. She then had to free them and take them all the way back to Honingen without getting them or herself killed.

A moneyed pepper sack had once frequented her services as an assassin, tasking her with ending a siege that was rupturing one of his trade routes.

‘Or was it that there was somebody who owed him coin?’

Whatever the case, the defenders had hostages on the besiegers, necessitating that the castle be starved out rather than stormed. And the garrison had stores to last for years. The hostages were a woman and her daughter in this case. Dari had slipped in during the night, smothered first the daughter and then the mother with a pillow, cut off their heads and impaled them on spikes over the battlements to let the besiegers know. By noon the next day, the castle was stormed and every last occupant put to the sword. This was the closest she ever got to rescuing hostages.

About her current, infinitely more complicated mission, doubts and pride were at war in her chest the whole time. A mission was a mission, which was good, and she was determined not to make such a pig’s breakfast of it as with the Chosen One. The exact question of how would depend upon the circumstances. It was too early to make plans now, her knowledge too limited, the stakes too elevated for such foolery.

On the other hand did she not want to throw away her life. She had had more brushes with death in recent times than she cared to count. Janna wanted to kill her, which was bad enough, but Laura showed such reckless disregard for her longevity that Dari wouldn’t be surprised if instead of the promised freedom she would only earn a moist death in the giantess’ cunt as a reward.

If she survived this contract, which was more than doubtful. Like as not it would be some ogress squashing Dari for laughs. She had killed ogresses before, but her brief time with Nagash had already taught her what could happen if such a large and powerful beast got hold of her.

Thus, the first day was spent weighing the yeas and nays, as well as navigating the treacherous river. By evenfall, when her thoughts turned to the more practical problem of where to make camp, she was suddenly confronted with fisherfolk on the river.

They tied their boats and rafts on rocks and other anchorage points with lines to haul in the nets and fish traps they had set in the morning. Others were holding rods with lines in the water. She was surprised to see them, having thought everything north of Arran wiped clean of human life by Janna and Laura, if not by the Red Curse. Such was what people in Honingen would have her believe, anyway.

Astoundingly, the fisherfolk seemed just as surprised to see her. She even sensed that their first impetus was to run, as people began looking to the banks of the river when the word spread. They seemed to realize eventually that the fifty-odd of them had little to fear from a single woman in a glorified skiff, and so they resumed their labour whilst keeping an eye on her.

Fighting on water was different, but Dari had sufficient confidence in her abilities to kill off a few opportunistic fishermen if she had to. Nevertheless, she loosened up her hidden knives in their sheaths and looked at every boat in search for crossbows.

When she was within shouting range, a man in a sea-green tunic called out: “Twelve blessings to you, weary traveller! Are you looking for Ambelmouth? Please, make rest in our town and entertain us with your tales! Do not go on! There is nothing but death down this river!”

‘Nordmarkers,’ Dari knew at once, ‘from the eastern bank of the Tommel.’

Nordmarken lay to her right, but she could not see any village there, let alone a town. This roused her suspicion at once, even though the caller clothed himself like an Efferd priest, making an ambush unlikely.

‘What does a priest do if he gets desperate, though.’

Then she saw it, the mouth of a smaller river, ending into the Tommel here.

“Twelve blessings to you, as well!” She piously hollered back. “What town is this you speak of and what is the name of that river there?!”

The priest seemed to sense her caution and smiled, much as though she had challenged him to a pillow fight. He was young and handsome enough, albeit that his mouth had so many teeth missing that she could see the gaps even from half a hundred paces.

“It’s the Ambla, of course!” He replied. “And our town is Ambelmouth! Where is it you hope to go?”

“Do you have beds at Ambelmouth?!” She ignored the question.

He grinned again: “Aye, and food, if you can pay! Fish and river crab, mostly…well, only, at this time! Come by me and I’ll a toss you a rope so we can pull you upriver!”

She thought quickly and decided that she liked the prospect of a hot meal and a warm bed much more than sleeping outside after a cold day on the water. And the priest was true to his word on the rope.

“Hard on the oars, boys!” He shouted from the rudder to his two fellow men in his boat, once they had her in tow.

His rowers were spitting images of him, sinewy lads with shocks of dirt-blond hair and bony faces. He also proved much older than his boyish demeanour had foretold, still forty-odd perhaps, or perhaps still in his late thirties.

“Well met!” He smiled at her from his boat. “Ephilio Admares, men call me. I am the servant of Efferd at Ambelmouth.”

It was unmistakably not a Nordmarkian name, Almadan, more likely, or Horasian.

She went with her second guess: “You are Horasian?”

“Grangorian, whelped and whipped,” he admitted. “My father took me here when I was little. It was Ansgar of Fadershill held Ambelmouth in that day, and after him his son Wunnemar. But he died eleven winters ago. From whence it you hail?”

The rowers laboured hard but the current was strong, and they had to overcome two rivers here. As a result, their pace was all but a creep, leaving plenty of time for longwinded small talk, much more than Dari wanted.

She ignored him again, “And who rules Ambelmouth now?”

“Why, Wunnemina, of course!” He replied with a side glace towards the mouth of the Ambla, where they were going. “In name, if nothing else, to hear some tell it. The truth is our town has fallen on hard times.”

‘Of course,’ Dari thought. ‘No trade on the river and two man-eating monsters next door.’

“Have you been hit, too,” she asked, “by those giant women?”

He raised his brows: “Ah, so you have heard of them! Tell me, how bad is it, truly, up that way?”

He gestured south, up the Tommel.

Dari had to tread carefully here. If the people of Ambelmouth found out that she was with the giantesses then they might turn hostile. They would also know the river well, so if she lied about where she had set off they might inquire details of her that she could not give them.

She gave him a frown: “They sit in Honingen now, devouring more of the city every day. Thousands are dead. I saw them make their way to the Farindel where the Red Curse is back. It’s bad. If I were you, I would not sit so boldly on the river. If they come by here and see you they will surely destroy you.”

He swallowed at that and his mood grew sombre, his voice sounding older at once.

“We’ve naught but the river to feed us now,” he said. “Our town has not suffered their footfalls yet, but every day could be our last here. We saw them too and holed up in the castle. I watched from the battlements and could have sworn they looked right at me. But they didn’t cross.”

There was a small bend right at the mouth of the Ambla, created by a spit of land overgrown with tall and beautiful willows. The town, as it crept into view, was surrounded by a palisade with a stone foundation and had many trees within its walls too. The castle was a little further on, connected to the town via a wooden bridge and seated on a hill. But it was small, hardly more than a keep, and its walls were overgrown with moss and in dire disrepair with young trees and brush sprouting from the stonework. And the surrounding trees were almost taller than it.

Dari nearly laughed at the thought of how narrowly this place must have avoided a flattening.

‘Better treat me nice, Ephilio Admares,’ she thought. ‘Else I might just tell Laura she missed a spot.’

If their conversation thus far was anything to go by, he had nothing to worry about, of course. Truth be told, she was enjoying his company, which was more than could be said about most people she had spoken to in recent days.

“The Twelve have held their hand over you, I am sure,” she said a little belatedly, waiting for a question that never came.

“Aye,” he weighed his head. “Or we just got lucky. Much as you.”

She truly was lucky to still be alive at this point, but the sheer extent of it could not be divulged.

“I only wanted to go back home,” she lied. “But the Albernians would not let me go because of the war, so I became stuck.”

She anticipated the logical question of where her home was, thinking, thinking, thinking of how to reply. Naming Gareth would corner her. After all, if that was her destination then going further downstream didn’t make any sense. She would have to go up the Ambla or else continue from here on foot. Naming Andergast as her destination solved this problem while creating an even bigger one, rather an army of problems, each roughly the size of an ogre.

“No place like home, especially in times like these,” he smiled apologetically at her. “Alas, I fear you have become stuck again. There is nowhere to go from here, wherever your home is.”

Alarmed, her first thought was of imprisonment. By now, they were close to the town, almost around it, and downstream they had the fisherfolk at their back. She could see archers over the palisade as well, having taken note of the new boat with a mast but no sail.

“W-why?” She stammered, looking at the plentiful directions she could have gone.

The priest laughed: “You’re at the northern end of Nordmarken! Granted, we’re not the northernmost barony here, but we might as well be, without the river. There are no roads. Up the Ambla there is nothing but a few lonely villages. And downstream is naught but death! You should have gone to Vairningen on the Imperial highroad, little use as that counsel is to you now, I know. I am sorry, but you had best stay here in Ambelmouth and wait for better times.”

It was hard to argue with.

“Is...” she started and stopped. “Truly? You have no way of getting out?”

He shook his head: “A vast, inhospitable wilderness surrounds us. A man who knows his way in the wild might make it, although he’d be more like to freeze to death. In summer, aye. But not now with winter upon us.”

He left her little choice. It was either say Andergast now, or cut the rope and run.

“B-but Andergast is my home! I must only follow the Tommel!”

The priest flinched: “Andergast! No, no, no, Andergast has been overrun by the ogre! Haven’t you heard?”

‘Now, how do I explain this away without an ogre-sized leap of faith?’

It seemed she had cornered herself after all. The priest looked at her with big eyes, expecting an answer and it better be a good one.

“Well…” She stammered before pressing her lips together, every second making her trouble worse. “W-well, it happens to be that...the ogres, they let the city folk be for the most part, much like any lord. They don't like it, the city, I mean, because they're big and the streets are narrow!”

“No, no, no,” he shook his head again. “We have had word from Arraned in Nostria, where the Nabla runs into the Tommel. The village is drowning in Andergastians, telling tales of most ogrish horrors! They came there fleeing the war, and now cause much woe and criminality, yet my heart bleeds for these poor souls.”

‘Arraned,’ she noted. ‘That sounds like just the place to go next.’

They came past the town now and she saw a small harbour with mooring places and jetties at the foot of the castle. Transport barges and freight rafts sat there side-by-side, unused and tied up, waiting for cargo to once again move up and down the river.

“That was during the war,” she argued. “King Aele has been killed and Kraxl is king now, and he has married the ogre queen. Things aren’t as bad as you have heard.”

“M-married?!”

Even more aghast, the priest almost fell out of his boat. His knees failed him and he landed on his arse, rocking the vessel like a cradle.

She had to stifle a laugh at his display: “It’s true, rites and all! I hear they forced the Travia priest who did it, on pain of death. The ogre queen has married many of her creatures to Andergastian lords, too. Our lords, that is. They are letting them live and keep their titles in exchange for sharing them.”

Of course, a man couldn’t have multiple wives, so the ogres had to find and remove the lord’s former wife first, or else they killed him too and then married one of his heirs. The Efferd priest wouldn’t be able to stomach such gruesome details, however. He was pale as milk now, struggling to get back up before one of his sons lent him a hand.

“And you know all this, how?” He asked her, looking frantically between her and the harbour in front of him, both requiring his attention.

It was an interesting question with implications that weren’t entirely free of peril. She might end up having to explain how and why she got to be in Honingen to see Laura and Janna arrive there while also being in Andergast long enough to know what the ogres were doing.

Luckily, her clothing, if not especially feminine, allowed her to pretend to be rich.

“My family sent word,” she lied. “A Beilunker Rider. They say it is safe to come back.”

“I pray that they are right,” the priest said without looking while his boys gave one last stroke on their oars before heaving the long, heavy pieces of wood into the boat with them.

They pulled up to the jetty and their conversation was at an end.

“If I return here in the morning,” she said while watching the priest’s sons secure her boat with ropes, “will it still be here?”

There were plenty of other vessels she might steal but she didn’t exactly want the hassle.

“Why, that depends,” one of the boys held out his hand. “Have you got a silver?”

‘Thieving, conniving wretches,’ she thought as she sat a while later, alone in the common room of the Fadershiller Treehouse, the better of the two inns Ambelmouth had, so named because it had a tree growing through it.

She might have given the priest and his boys a copper or two for rowing her into town, but a silver was abject robbery, especially without informing her beforehand.

But the times were desperate in Ambelmouth. A bowl of river crab stew and a roasted perch, some heavily watered wine and a room for the night were supposed to cost her half a dozen more silvers in the Fadershiller Treehouse. Dari only managed to haggle the fat, female innkeep down to a single silver by threatening to go to the Rejoicing Rafter instead, similarly lacking patrons. And the food lacked salt.

The town hadn't seen a single traveller in some time, she learned from the innkeep. First, any traffic to and from Andergast had vanished. Then Nostria had disappeared as well. Finally, Albernia had come under the giant monsters' heel, and Ambelmouth's catastrophe was perfect.

If the river froze too thickly during the winter, or if the fish didn't bite, the people would starve.

For now, it seemed they were mostly craving coin, or perhaps distraction. A carpenter sought her out first, to inquire if her boat needed mending. Then a seamstress to ask the same for her clothes. A third person tried to sell her a magical amulet that he swore kept ogres and other evil creatures at bay, while a fourth offered her a medicinal tincture that smelled like urine.

The only thing she actually considered buying was a sail, but that proved so extravagantly costly that she could hardly afford it. She still had some coin from Hatchet who had not been a niggard, and in Honingen she had thieved the purse of a man who was. But if the prices in Andergast and Nostria were anywhere near as high as here she would have to watch her expenditure. If not, she might be forced to steal more along the way, thereby drawing unnecessary attention.

She had hardly come a day far on this voyage and already it proved troublesome. This certainly spelled nothing good.

While making ready to go to bed in her cold room – she had forgotten to haggle for firewood and the fat woman would not budge this time – she could hear laughter and merriment across the central square from the Rejoicing Rafter, oddly enough accompanied by strange music.

She would have liked to get drunk and rowdy had her circumstances not loomed over her like a giant shadow.

‘But why shouldn’t I run out from under it?’

There were Laura’s threats, aye. But she had been under constant threat all her life. The threat of starvation when she was little. The threat of getting caught, losing a hand or be branded, the threat of being hanged with or without the prospect of being gruesomely tortured beforehand.

Laura and Janna were big. But the world was bigger. Much like there were many watchful eyes in Gareth but far, far more people than anybody could keep an eye on.

Joy, laughter, freedom, these things could be hers again if she ran. The problem was that there was nowhere to run to, as the priest had pointed out. She was in the worst kind of place to make this decision.

Back south, upstream, wasn't really an option. She would be slow on the river, and if Laura or Janna crossed her path again it would cost her her life.

‘Shall I stay here, in Ambelmouth?’

That sounded not much better, although it might serve for a time if the laughter from the other inn was anything to go by.

She missed that most of all, the levity of an evening in a tavern, drinking, dicing, toying with men's hearts. In Gareth, those who knew her feared and respected her a great deal, but she could still lose herself in the city and become anyone or no one, and never face any consequence the next day.

‘I don't want to go on like this,’ she decided. ‘I can't. To the Netherhells with Janna and Laura. May the Nameless take them!’

She was crying, she realized, the tears burning on her cheeks in the cold air. It was getting colder again and a fog hung over the town, only the lights of the Rejoicing Rafter shining through.

She could even make out the song they were singing there, whispering it with them: “Oh, sing with me, sing with me, about the preacher's cow Bessy. Sing with me, sing with me, about the cow Bessy!”

Her own voice sounded sad and glum in her ears. Frustrated, she took herself to bed, only to be awoken after a dreamless slumber before the break of dawn, the bells of a temple ringing obnoxiously and the fat woman huffing and puffing before her door.

“Prayer time!” The innkeep banged her fist against the wood. “Up with you, sleepy head, and take yourself to your god! Our lady does not permit ungodliness in her town!”

The water the woman left her for washing was cold as ice, another revenge for yesterday’s haggling. Dari splashed some on her face and wrists and called that good enough before slipping into her clothes.

She tried to recall the last time she had attended morning prayers in the Church of Praios, or service to any god for that matter. It had been a long time, to be sure.

As she walked to the Praios temple, a relatively simple stone building with a noisy bell tower situated in the centre of the town square with all other buildings respectfully far away, an old children’s prayer crept into her head: ‘With Praios' Sun the year begins, Rondra fights and Rondra wins. Efferd lets the rain fall and Peraine gives fruit to us all. Boron's mist brings death, Firun icy breath. Tsa lets new life sprout and Hesinde crushes doubt. Phex makes men be lucky, Travia makes family. Ingerimm's fire melts iron in hearths, and Rahya’s fire melts hearts.’

It was a truly stupid rhyme, recited by children to remember which of the Twelve supposedly did what. She had never truly believed in them. But after her dream...

‘Hypocrite,’ she thought as she neared the gates of the church. ‘You left an offering at a few altars, and then?!’

But the gods were hypocrites, too.

‘How can they demand that we worship them when they do not so much as lift a finger against Laura and Janna?’

She slipped inside the temple, quiet as a mouse, to avoid the congregated townsfolk staring at her and admonishing her lateness.

Under normal circumstances she wouldn't have bothered entering at all. It was just that she didn't want to leave ill will behind, seeing as her mission might well necessitate stopping here again on the way back.

On the opposite side of the heavy portal she could see a golden sun, it’s rays elongated with light-yellow paint and stretching over the painted walls where they cut through griffins, lynxes, holy people and sunflowers.

A few more golden items and decorations were in evidence here and there, as well as red and white hangings over the rafters.

Tonsured and wearing white, red and golden robes, a priest stood in front of the congregated townsfolk.

“Lordship, truth and order!” He shouted as Dari moved in, mixing among the poorer folk standing at the back of the temple. “Lordship, truth and order! In despair and darkness...”

The people answered him in unison: “The light prevails!”

“Against witches and liars...”

“The light prevails!”

“With fire and sword...”

“The light prevails!”

Dari shouted it with them the last time, lest someone saw and thought her impious. Nevertheless did these preachings leave her with a foul feeling in her belly.

“Where the light of our Lord Praios shines, lies and doubt perish!” The priest went on. “Where the light of our Lord Praios shines, order will not falter! Where the all-seeing eye watches, darkness retreats! In the name of Praios, our eternal lord, all-seeing judge and blazing king, may his light fill your hearts! May his light lift your souls! May the light of our lord show you the way, now and forever! Aye!”

“Aye!” The congregation shouted back and the spook was suddenly over.

“Quick one,” someone near Dari chuckled under their breath as they all shuffled back out of the temple.

For a small community like this, the time before and after prayers was perhaps even more important than the service itself because it represented an opportunity to converse with people one might otherwise miss during the day. From what Dari heard, procuring fish and firewood were the most important things at this time.

She saw the fat woman talking with the Efferd priest, and even though it seemed to be about a certain amount of coin she owed him, Dari thought that it might be best to make hay whilst the sun shined, as the peasants said, and leave Ambelmouth swiftly.

‘And do what?’ She thought.

The night before, she had been certain that she would abandon trying to save Steve and Christina, yet when she awoke, her mind had still worked on pretences much to the contrary. She decided to postpone the decision, which she was able to do because her way led her down the Tomnel in either case, giving her one more day. Then, she would have to decide, either turning east towards Griffinsford and ultimately Gareth, or either west or north, depending on where Varg the Impaler had been sighted.

The only thing she was now certain of, was that she did not want to stay in Ambelmouth. That sermon was as much as she could stomach, and she would not want to get into trouble for skipping morning prayers.

Therefore, she went straight back to the little harbour, only to find that her boat and the heavy leather bag containing her provisions were gone.

She had to close her eyes for a moment and fume in silence at that brazen priest and his wretched boys. No doubt, he thought he was doing her a favour, even saving her life. To her, however, it was little more than theft and betrayal and she wanted to slit his throat for it.

She met him again on her way back as he was leading the other fisherfolk to the boats to bring the nets out, grinning and jesting, all the amiable, gap-toothed fraud he was. It wouldn't do to kill him here, she knew, with so many eyes about, even though her hands were twitching.

He even had the temerity to hail her: “Forgot something, or have you taken a liking to our town?”

It was too much.

She smiled back at him to lower his defences before putting him on his knees with a sharp kick to the groin. Her next kick went against the side of his head which felled him sideways and knocked three more teeth from his mouth.

His companions shouted in alarm and tried to rush her, but stopped after she nearly killed the first of them by hitting the apple in his throat, leaving him wheezing on the ground gasping for air.

“Thief!” She hissed at the priest to establish that she was in the right. “I gave your boy a silver and you steal my boat?!”

He was disoriented and spat blood, his eyes rolling aimlessly, trying to focus on her. She stepped over him and brought out her knife, and to the gasps and anguish of everyone around cut the purse from his belt before jingling it at her ear.

“I'm only taking back what's mine,” she said and took out a silver. “Though I should take it all.”

Such a thing might do in the poor quarters of Gareth where it was customary to rob the losers of brawls, but not here in Ambelmouth if that sermon had been any indication. To satisfy her lust for revenge, she dropped the purse clean back into the priest's face before stepping off him.

“We didn't took your damn boat!” The oldest of the sons rushed to his father's aid. “If you’re too blind to find it don't take it out on him!”

“Might be the river took it,” an older fisherman with white hair suggested. “Did you tied it well fast?”

“I tied it,” protested the boy, “double Efferd's knot, my father showed me how! It's there, right where we left it!”

Dari had another bad feeling in her tummy, and was forced to restate that it was not.

With a horde of confused and bitter fisherfolk at her back, she let the boy lead her back to the harbour. Her assault had left the priest incapacitated, which could spell bad for her if against all odds she was somehow proven wrong.

That fear proved unfounded, however, as it was the boy who now drew the fisher's ire.

“It was here!” He gestured feebly at the empty spot in the water. “It wasn't holed neither, and I tied it well, I know I did!”

“Fool!” One of the more senior fishermen clouted him over the ear. “Then where is it?!”

Strangely, the boy recovered from the blow with an eerie look of recognition: “The fool!”

The feeling in Dari's tummy darkened further as a natter broke out.

“But he played so godly yesterday.”

“Has anyone seen him at prayers?”

“He weren't there. Would've stood out like a painted dog, that one.”

“I never liked him.”

“Skin like soot, up to no good!”

“Oh, you sang a different tune yesterday.”

Dari felt as though she was falling. When she brought up her hand to wipe her mouth, she found it shaking like leaves.

“A man,” she asked, “dressed as a jester with dark skin and yellow eyes?”

The old fisherman was the only one with the courage to look her in the eye and nod: “Blue and white, his motley was. Don't know how he came into town, thought he had his own boat.”

Her blood ran cold. It would be too much of a coincidence not to be him.

The boy ran at once to ask the archers on the walls and came back with confirmation right away.

“One said he saw him sail north around the bend!” He called, huffing and puffing. “Not so long ago, he said, while we was praying!”

Why the archers had made no attempts to stop him, interested her only marginally at this point. It was much more important to get her boat back. She also felt a sting of guilt over what she had done to the priest and vowed to pay it back doubly worse to Krool. The problem now was catching him.

“Tell your father I'm sorry,” she said and flashed two silvers at the boy. “Can we go after him now?”

In theory, if she had rowers they should catch up to the black fool in due time. He had a head start but not by much, and he alone couldn't possibly move the boat off the river.

The boy's face hardened and twisted as he eyed the coins, but before he could make a decision their plans were thwarted.

Another man noticed it first: “There's no oars, boy! All them oars are gone!”

“What kind of callous soul does that?” An evidently slow-witted women asked.

Dari gave the vessels another look, finding that it was true. Krool must have dumped them in the river to cover his escape.

“Isn't that one, there?” She pointed to the far opposite bank where one of the wooden shafts had gotten tangled amongst branches in the water.

“We must get them back!”

Like drunk Thorwallers, the fisherfolk scrambled into their boats. She understood their haste. Without fish, they were starving, and without oars they couldn't make it back into their town. Over this, they seemed to forget all else. One man even elbowed Dari out of the way, for which she retaliated by tripping him and sending him headlong into the water.

Beating up the priest had left her taut like a bowstring and reminded her of the many skills she possessed. It was easy to think oneself weak and meek under Janna and Laura, hapless and condemned to another’s will.

At this point, Dari had had truly enough of Ambelmouth and decided that she wouldn't care to see it again. This in turn opened up more options for her.

While the fisherfolk started rowing with hands, sticks, bowls and wooden boards, she climbed the hill to the castle to steal a horse.

‘Help yourself, so help you Phex,’ the saying went, and she couldn’t help but notice that it held true.

A spotted mare, saddled and bridled, had just left the castle led by a groom and was now crossing the wooden bridge into town. It was hard to believe that Phex should have nothing to do with it.

“Hey, groom!” She called out. “Where are you taking this horse on such a fine day?”

The man turned, making the horse stop. He was about her age, blond and browned by sunlight.

“Out along the river,” he replied amiably. “Milady don’t ride her, so someone must. Have you come to see her? Best not right now, I warn you, she's in her headaches.”

“Oh,” Dari made while edging closer, “I pray she recovers soon!”

He laughed: “You and her maid, both! Milady's always been prone to headaches, specially when the weathers change.”

Dari walked the length of the horse, stroking its fur with her hands.

“She's such a fine animal,” she cooed. “I wish I had a horse like that.”

The groom nodded: “It was Milady's husband’s, but he was too frail to mount her. Way I see it, she might as well be mine. I'm the only one that rides her, so...”

She smiled at him: “Well, not today. I'm sorry.”

She could've opened him from balls to brains with her knife, but deemed it unnecessary. Instead, she bent down, grabbed his leg and half lifted, half shoved him backwards over the edge of the bridge.

He went with a scream, but once he vanished within the brush below he was silent, only the thud of his body hitting something hard indicating what had happened to him. For all the good it did, she hoped in her heart that he wasn’t dead.

The mare baulked briefly ere Dari could snatch the reins and swing herself into the saddle. Then she kicked her heels into the horse’s flanks and rode.

It wasn't all smooth, though. An archer on the gatehouse had been paying close attention and sent an arrow her way, the shaft thumping her poor horse in the rump, scaring the animal so much that it almost threw her. At the ring of alarm bells, they were closing the gates of the palisade as well, the only land exit Ambelmouth had.

She made it through, but only barely, and two more arrows followed her, one hissing past her right ear and another punching a hole through her leather mantle. Krool, if she caught him, would have a deal to answer for.

If she didn’t catch him, she might be truly in trouble now, she realized. She had no food, other than the horse, and if she ate it she would have to go on foot through the wilderness.

‘Or I'll sneak back in during the night,’ she thought. ‘Steal some food, steal a boat and seek a place to shelter.’

The next day she might continue on as though nothing ever happened, at least if she managed not to drown during her escape.

For now, she rode away from the town and along the river, glimpsing at the water in between the trees and brush for signs of her boat. So long as the horse could run, she would be alright.

She slowed down eventually, to spare her mount and not miss her boat if she rode past it. After the mare tired she took her to the river's edge by a sandbank to water her, taking the opportunity to look for pursuers. If the fisherfolk were indeed after her then she seemed to have well outrun them for the moment.

Boats were slower than horses, but horses couldn’t run forever, so the boats might eventually catch up. And while the mare Dari had stolen was tame and docile it had certainly seen better days, not to mention the arrow still sticking in her rump. She examined the wound and concluded that it would mean the end for the animal. The rough gallop with which Dari had escaped the town had torn it wider and wider, and long streams of blood ran down the horse's leg.

But when she looked the opposite way, down the river, she found that she wouldn't have need of the horse much longer.

It was right there, her boat, beached on another sandbar and a figure in blue and white motley beside it, wearing a hood against the cold. A tiny, little fire was smouldering there, and Krool appeared to be roasting a fish.

He was unmoving, though, so much so that it wouldn’t surprise her to find that he had fallen asleep. It came just in time, too. When she tried to move her horse off the river it refused and laid itself down instead. To die, Dari had little doubt at this point.

She didn't want to make too much of a noise and ruin her advantage on the mad fool, so she left the mare where it was and went on afoot, sneaking in between the trees that lined the riverbank, much as she could never losing eyes on her target.

‘Now, a throwing knife?’ She thought. ‘Or something more personal?’

She wanted revenge for him effectively delivering her to the inquisition, which led to her being gruesomely tortured within an inch of her life. But then again, he had saved her life in that freak blizzard.

‘But will a throwing knife be enough?’

It would pay to be wary of this man, having seen the things he could do, no matter the state he was in now. The closer she came the more her neck began to tingle, telling her that failing might go Ill for her.

‘A stab through the neck,’ she decided, ‘and quick.’

Not letting him suffer was her way of thanking him for the good he had done her.

He hadn't moved the entire time, and when she was on the sand her footsteps were well muffled. The blade was in her hand.

‘Easy now.’

He must have fallen off the boat and nearly drowned, she thought. Perhaps he had already succumbed to the cold. His footsteps were all over the place as he must have gathered firewood, but the fish he had caught was as black as charcoal on the belly.

He must have never even checked her bag for food, otherwise he could have eaten hard cheese and sausage instead.

She held her breath and stepped behind him. Like lightning the sharpened steel shot forth, slicing through hood and motley and burying itself up to the handle in...something that felt and sounded like dry brush.

“Welcome,” his horrible voice breathed into her ear, and something else she never heard because she panicked.

She whirled around stabbing, but a strong, black hand caught her wrist. When her eyes saw him she was terrified to find him naked, a black, scarred golem of nothing but muscle.

The next thing she saw were all the four knuckles of his fist, smashing her in the face so hard that her head flew backwards.

“It's snowing,” she mumbled confused as white flakes danced around her eyes.

Then everything went dark.

-

“Think of him as the sword, dear, and you the sheath,” the Horasian Master said. “And what a fine fit you were too.”

Thorsten pulled his britches over his member and fumbled at the laces, awkwardly aware of the woman's stares. She was older than him, but well-built for a Horasian, fleshy and robust, although her teats could not compare to those of a proper Thorwaller woman. His seed was running down her arse and formed a pool on the impenetrably soft velvet cushions.

How her husband could live with himself, Thorsten did not know. He had ordered and then watched Thorsten bed his wife from start to finish, and Thorsten wasn't quite sure who of the two had enjoyed it more. It wasn't as though the master had put a hand on himself during it, but there had been the odd, irritating gasp and moan.

“Get dressed, boy,” the master smiled. “We shall go light a candle for Tsa and then it's off to the cockpit!”

Horasians were strange people with customs that seemed queer and foolish. The cockpit, as an example, referred to a place where roosters were made to fight, pecking each other to death under the curses and jeers of fine-clothed men who bet obscene amounts of coin on the outcome.

Thorsten would much rather have the birds made into soup.

The city was an uncomfortably large place full of smells and noise. One could hardly walk down a cobbled street without bumping into somebody or being run over by a horse or carriage, and everyone, even the last, piss-poor beggar, was extremely prickly about their honour.

Vinsalt was also the capital of the Horasian Empire. He was right in the heart of the enemy now, and yet he was a captive, bent and broken, doing as he was told. He did not even wear irons. The scars upon his back were his chains.

It pleased his master to dress him as one of his servants and parade him in front of neighbours and peers. It was all about who one saw and was seen by, and a huge, docile Prince of Thorwal attracted the interests of many folk, especially in times like these.

Niando Tuachall himself was a lesser member of a vaguely noble family, married into the slightly more noteworthy house of Vistelli.  He traded mostly in grain and Thorsten had already learned that the Horasians did not regard this business as a particularly prestigious one, much to Niando's chagrin.

With his new exotic pet, however, these problems didn’t seem so big anymore.

“You can ask me if you want,” Niando said as they sat in the carriage, a large, rumbling, noisy, crammed and inconvenient way of travel, even worse than riding. “Why would I light a candle for Tsa?”

If the serving men in the front and back of the carriage were listening, or if they could even hear anything, Thorsten could not tell. They were almost entirely enclosed in this terrible, shaking box on wheels.

His master continued, unbidden: “I hope that you will get my wife with child! I shall have a tall, strong son, just like you.”

How lighting a candle to some idol was going to help with that remained an open question, but Thorsten knew better than to say anything.

The temple proved to be a whitewashed building with many paintings of eggs, lizards and rainbows, and a large number of unkempt children about, making mischief. Niando did not require Thorsten to follow him inside, but after he came out again and they wanted to move on, one of the wagon's wheels suddenly fell off.

“They removed the splint, Signor!” The wagon driver leaned into the cabin, pointing out the culprit amongst the children.

“You should have better watch over my possessions,” Niando scolded in reply. “Now go and get it back!”

A boy of twelve or so was holding up the metal splint, grinning. But when the servant went to grab him, he hopped away and tossed it to one of his friends. A game ensued thereupon amongst the boys, quickly involving both servants and a fat, long-haired priestess with a rainbow sash around her chest, all to no avail.

“Want your splint back, Signor?” An older boy showed up at the window of the carriage. “Give us ten coppers and it is yours!”

“Signor, I beg you!” Implored one of the servants from afar. “Let us use the spare!”

“Sooner I'll use your finger!” snapped Niando in rage.

It was a very strange and bewildering situation to be privy to, but such things happened all the time in Vinsalt. What Niando said made Thorsten recall a story his father had told him once, of a place far away called ‘Oholt'. That place was so named because a king had snapped so many splints on his wagon that he had run out, and had commanded his serving man to put his finger in the hole to keep the wheel on. Then, when the king wanted to know the name of the village they were passing, all the serving man could say was, ‘oh hold, oh hold, oh hold!’

It had brought roaring laughter to the hall when his father had told the story, but these days Thorsten was doubting whether it was even true. So many things seemed doubtful now.

“Boy,” Niando rounded on him for his inaction, “don't sit there like a chamber pot! Do something!”

The servants strutted after the laughing boys like some of the roosters they were likely to encounter at the cockpit, making for an absurd spectacle. Now even a dog joined in, and people stopped to point and laugh as well.

Thorsten kicked the wooden wagon door open with his boot, hitting the boy who had made the offer and knocking him backwards. Ere the lad could get up, he was over him, seizing him by the collar. The boy was fourteen or fifteen, a man by age perhaps but clearly not by body. He was small and thin, perhaps half of Thorsten's weight if even that. So he didn't really but up much of a defence.

A single punch was enough and the first boy was out cold. There were drunken brawls happening here too, supposedly. But Thorsten couldn’t imagine what they might look like. Perhaps this counted as a brawl already, in the Horasians' eyes.

Upon seeming him and what he had done to their friend, the other boys dropped their game and the splint, choosing to run away instead.

“Splendid!” Niando shouted from the wagon. “Well struck, like a true warrior!”

‘You do not pay me like a warrior,’ Thorsten thought.

The other servants who bowed and scraped and cleaned and served were all paid for their labour, but then again he was spared such menial tasks. Furthermore did he eat with his master and mistress at the same table. The difference was that he didn't have a home, no right to leave, be it for a day or to quit his service entirely. He was beholden to Niando like a slave, having been bought off the rowing bench at another Horasian city.

Thorsten’s voyages had not exactly gone as planned. He had set out from Joborn with three ships, men, supplies, weapons and tools, tasked with razing the castle Engasal. He had bypassed the castle in order to save time, but by then he had already lost the first ship.

It turned out that his force of Fjarningers and Andergastian outlaws were spectacularly unskilled at sailing longships. The outlaw Badluck Robin had snagged his vessel on a rock and managed to turn it sideways, upon which it had been pushed over by the current, capsized and nigh everyone aboard drowned.

Reaching the open sea with the two remaining ships had taken far longer than Thorsten had anticipated, and when they were finally out and turned north under full oars they ran straight into a storm, battering them south and away from their destination. Thorsten did not even know what became of Chieftain Arombolosh and Gillax the shaman. The last time he saw their ship it was slipping away yonder mountainous waves.

The storm toyed with Thorsten’s Fishermen’s End for days and the exceptionally icy wind and snow lead to men freezing to death at their oars. Ice built up on deck and froze their mast. The longship became top-heavy, a thing that needed to be avoided on such a vessel due to its shallow draft. Finally, during one pitch-black night, it all became too much and they toppled over under a wave. The mast snapped off and all the crew was lost, only Thorsten managing to cling to the rudder for dear life when the ship righted itself as the ballast was washed off in the ice-cold waters.

The next day when he woke, the storm was over. But he had already been in sight of a huge Horasian dromon whom that same storm appeared to have blown north, albeit with much less substantial damage. Thorsten had been too weak and cold to fight at that point. They had captured him, stripped him naked, whipped him a couple of times for good measure and chained him to an oar.

That wasn’t the last whipping he received, either. The overseers down in the hold could strip the flesh from a man’s back with every lash, and they used their tools liberally at the slightest infraction. He had heard as much at home from the mouths of those as who had escaped it. But he had always envisioned himself beating it, gritting his teeth and making it through, strong-willed until an opportunity of escape arose from somewhere.

In reality, he had lost his will to escape, make mischief or even give the overseers a challenge right in the middle of his second whipping. He slept at his oar. He ate at his oar. He shat at his oar. And he watched many a man perish at the oar as well, be it to the whip, malnourishment or sheer exhaustion.

When he couldn’t take it anymore, he had confided to an overseer the details of his heritage, thinking that a death at the gallows might be more merciful. But it hadn’t happened so.

While they lay in harbour after their long and gruesome voyage, the rowing slaves were still chained to their benches like animals in a sty. In the night, the overseer returned with a man, words were exchanged as well as a bag of coin, and Thorsten’s shackles were loosened.

That man was Niando Tuachall. He nursed Thorsten back to health with soup, fresh fruit and a bed to sleep in. He shaved him, bathed him and had a healer see after his condition. And when Thorsten was strong enough, he made him fuck his wife.

If truth be told, it could have been much worse. And it threatened to become much worse as soon as Thorsten failed in his duties by his master. Escape would be easy now. Niando was a small man with narrow shoulders and a bad leg, soft and weak to boot. Thorsten could throttle him to death, and his fat wife, at any point he wished. Or he could just walk out of the door.

It was what came after that made him stay.

They lifted the wagon and hoisted the wheel back on, put in that blasted splint and continued on their journey.

“So much criminality,” Niando complained as they moved. “It is the war, I tell you. Men think they can do as they please now, and our imperial laws mean nothing.”

The war meant the ongoing revolt of some noble families against the Horasian emperor. Vinsalt hadn’t seen much fighting yet because many troops loyal to the throne were quartered here. But if what Thorsten overheard was anything to go by, things weren’t going so well in the rest of the empire, for neither side.

If it hadn’t been winter it might have been the best possible time to raid the coast. The thought made him grind his teeth together.

“Can you fight, boy, truly?” Niando asked suddenly.

Thorsten was reluctant to answer. He hated speaking in the presence of Horasians, and he was always in the presence of Horasians now. Oft as not, his Thorwalsh way of saying things made them giggle.

“In war?” He asked, ultimately smelling a chance to escape.

If somehow he could make it to were the chaos was greatest, he might be able to slip away.

“No!” Niando waved off. “Not in war, boy. In a proper duel! Man against man, as it were, blade in hand!”

Thorsten knew the way Horasians duelled with their thin blades and absurd demeanours. He found it silly. They didn’t even use shields, little fist bucklers at the most and even that only sparingly.

“With axe and shield, aye,” he finally said. “But I have used blades.”

He slew an ogress once with a sword that was taller than him, although that battle had spelled the beginning of his misfortune. The longswords he had acquired in Andergast hadn’t brought any more luck either, and both were lost when the galley took him, same as the armour he had so liked.

Niando put on his thinking face: “A drunk brawl and some rape and plunder will not do. You wouldn’t be fighting fisherfolk neither, but proper men of your station…well, as a lackey. But if you do it well, there might be gold in it for me. Plenty of gold, hm. Though I would be loath to lose you, my lusty stallion.”

He laughed and Thorsten felt uncomfortable inside his own skin. It was the ability of this small, weak man to make him feel this way.

Suddenly, Niando leaned forward as if to kiss him, and Thorsten recoiled, but the master only wanted to knock on the wood and let the waggoner know that they were changing destinations.

Vinsalt sat on two banks of the Yaquir river, a mighty stream with many ships, leading around the desert of Khôm to the east and far, far inland. An ancient imperial road ran across the Yaquir here, spanning the waters with the longest bridge that Thorsten had ever seen. The northern bank of the river was generally richer. Most of the temples were here, foremostly the gargantuan Praios temple inside the inner walls, dwarfing even the emperor’s own palace. But then again, there was also the lackey quarter which they had just passed, with many houses spilling over and bursting at the hem with the servants living in them.

Their way now took them through Albornshenk, a much better situated part of the city with all manner of institutions Thorsten could not even begin to comprehend, such as the Connetabila Criminalis Capitale, the Academica Horasiana and a school that judging by its name did nothing but teach dancing.

They ended up even further beyond, in the Horasgardens where the urban nobility had their villas. Much as in the lackey quarter, most people afoot here were servants, doing the biddings of their betters. But there were notably fewer people, less filth and a somewhat overbearing greenery surrounding it all.

Niando guided the wagon to halt at one of the snow-white buildings amidst luxurious gardens where some type of festivity appeared to take place. Servants stood in rows, ready to serve cakes, wines and other such culinary ugliness to a flurry of furlined femininity that stood or sat around giggling, reading or listening to the soul-crushingly boring music of a harp.

Thorsten felt ill walking in, wondering what his master wanted here.

Niando, however, was in his element, albeit that in his somewhat worn black velvets he was now thoroughly outdressed, looking like a beggar. He was all smiles all of a sudden, drawing his hat at this lady or that, exchanging a few pleasant words as the situation required.

They went through all this with a sure step and walked around the house past a young nobleman who apparently had drunk a little too much wine, to yet another and even larger garden where most of the men congregated. These men were no less absurdly dressed than their female counterparts, albeit that they wore pantaloons instead of dresses, accompanied by velvet hats with singular feathers. While the ladies had also seemed to wear an excessive amount of fur for the mild Horasian winter, the men did not wear quite as much. It did not escape Thorsten, however, that like the ladies in front of the house some of these men had powdered their faces white, rouged their cheeks and wore very feminine hairdos.

It was all a great mummery, pretentious and false, and from its midst rang the clanger of thin blades smacking into each other.

Overdoing everything they did in true Horasian fashion, their latest fancy in weaponry was the florett, a thing that could not even be called a blade because it was round instead of sharpened. It was nothing but a pointy, hopelessly bendy metal stick, complete with a metal bowl to protect the hand of the wearer. Noticing the absurd Horasian arm made Thorsten remember Léon, probably the only Horasian he had ever liked.

Niando went to the far side of the crowd where one could see the combatants. Two young men battled each other on a stretch off roughed-up grass, each holding a glorified skewer already badly bent from the endless lunging and parrying. Due to their arms being strictly stabbing weapons, their fight was a rather one-dimensional one, dancing back and forth while dodging blows by leaning. Much like all the rest, it looked stupid.

Finally, one of the combatants cried out in pain and collapsed with his opponent's steel point in his shoulder. Everything happened so quickly that Thorsten hadn't even seen the blow.

“Surgeon!” A man called out and a grey-haired man shuffled forward to the crowd of supporters that immediately flocked around the fallen man.

They could hear him cry like a child, which made even some of the older moneyed nobility cringe with embarrassment. Then, after another tense while, it was announced that the fight had to be discontinued as second blood had been achieved.

“Time for some refreshments, I think,” said Niando, grabbing at an imaginary cup in the air. “Boy, that servant there carries wine.”

Thorsten looked at the man, standing there like one of the stone statues that the Horasians liked so well, holding a tablet with glass cups on thin, elevated bottoms. It was as though the more filigree, fragile and impractical something was, the more the Horasians loved it.

“What are you waiting for? Shoo!” Niando waved him on.

Thorsten was not entirely sure of the meaning, but being the thrall he now was, he set himself dutifully into motion.

“Do you carry wine?” He inquired of the serving man after walking over, turning heads all about as he went.

With the combat over, attentions were diverging somewhat, and he stood out like a painted dog wherever he went in this city.  

“For the guests, aye,” the servant replied stiffly before whispering. “What do you think this is, you ape, hm? Blood?!”

Thorsten had seen an ape a few days prior at the harbour bazaar, a clever little animal that climbed swiftly on top of its master's shoulders and accepted coins from enchanted onlookers which it then bit and stashed inside a little pouch.

There were certainly worse things one might be compared to, so he let the insult slide and returned to Niando.

“Aye,” he hollered on his approach. “He does carry wine!”

Niando was engaged in conversation and seemed irritated by the interruption. Before him stood a lanky man who was almost as tall as Thorsten, but easily thrice as old. Dwarfed by the side of this man stood, apparently, a woman, red lips and cheeks on a powdered face.

Niando held out a hand: “And my cup?”

Horasians oft chose to hide the meaning of their words behind of veil of unnecessary contortions, much as though they had never quite learned how to speak. By now, Thorsten understood what was meant at most times, but when something distracted him he could be caught off guard.

“You didn't say you want one,” he defended himself factually, which made the tall man laugh and the woman titter.

“Another of your likely lads?” the tall man inquired, grinning.

At first glance, he seemed like the kind of man one could have a horn of mead with, despite his Horasianess.

Niando smiled mildly: “This is Thorsten Hafthor Olafson, of Thorwal. Son of Olaf the Terrible, that is, some say the last surviving one!”

“Ah, ha, ha,” the man laughed. “I'm sure he is!”

The woman tittered dutifully, albeit in a way that Thorsten found utterly revolting. She wasn't very pretty with her protruding jaw and the accentuated lines on her face. Her dress was queer too, colourful but barely longer than the jackets and doublets of the men. He wasn't sure but perhaps she was a whore. Whores' clothing was usually cut a little scanter.

“So, Signor Olafson,” the tall man looked Thorsten square in the eye, “how is it that you find yourself in this Signor's service?”

“He bought me,” Thorsten replied flatly before Niando jumped in to cut him off.

“He is indentured to me, he means. I bought him free straight from a galley's oar and he is indebted to me for the price I paid. Until such time as that is made good, his freedom is forfeit to me.”

It seemed a lot of words to describe slavery. Horasians were bags of wind.

“Oh!” The woman exclaimed with a mild, sweet voice much too deep for her. “A Thorwaller who knows his sums! How much is left of your debt, Thorsten?”

The old man laughed again: “Ah, that is all lawful and proper, I’m sure. Alas, are we not still at war with Thorwal?”

The woman scoffed: “Who are we not at war with.”

But Niando waved off: “I have it on good authority that those lands were and remain all but entirely flattened. There is nothing there but a handful of survivors, busy rubbing themselves together to make more.”

That elicited more mild laughter. Thorsten wondered whether he should try and join in. Maybe it would make him feel less awkward.

“I hear fisherfolk are rejoicing all over the coast,” the woman added sweetly.

“Ha, ha, ha!” Thorsten made, but no one else did and it only earned him queer glances.

“Ah, it doesn’t come at an ill time,” the tall man replied, all serious now. “Imagine what would be if another one of their raids happened on us in this state. It’s disgraceful!”

“Indeed, one cannot help but wonder how much control His Royal Magnificence really holds over these beasts that we have heard of, and whether or not he will call them to his aid,” Niando pondered. “And outside the city many are looking for which way to jump. I myself confess to a certain weariness of this whole issue…”

“Do best not speak loudly of such things,” the old man warned before changing the subject. “Have you had a chance to observe our warriors at work, Signor Olafson? I’m sure it’s not quite the way of fighting you are used to.”

“Thorwaller steel is brittle,” the ugly woman fell in, unsmiling. “If they made a florett it would break at the slightest flex!”

She reached into her dress and drew one such weapon, bending it in between her hands to show how flexible it was. It was rather strange because under normal circumstances Horasians did not allow their women to be armed. Women weren’t even allowed to observe men’s duelling, the reasoning being that they might faint at the sight of blood.

Horasians, apparently, did not know very much about women.

The florett had golden flowers worked into its black handguard. It was good steel, undoubtedly, albeit entirely wasted.

It was offered to him for some reason and he took it, eying the pointy end which was about the only thing one might consider dangerous on this weapon.

“If I were to roast a piglet…” he shrugged, struggling meanwhile to think up other purposes at which it might prove useful.

Roasting chickens, perhaps. Or driving oxen.

The woman snatched it back from his hand, quick as a cat and visibly infuriated.

Before she could let off a tirade, the tall man spoke again: “Signor Olafson does not think highly of our Horasian tools.”

Niando agreed: “They are unfamiliar to him. The Thorwalsh rely on the strength of their bodies rather than wit and skill, to be sure.”

“If all our foes were unarmed fisherfolk, any old axe would do,” the woman added, wrinkling up her nose at Thorsten.

“You best use a crossbow,” he advised in earnest. “Save those poor souls a slow dying.”

Suddenly, the old man heaved with rumbling laughter while the woman stared at him in shock. Even Niando tittered.

“You will withdraw that insult now!” She screeched at him.

Thorsten was confused.

“Splendid!” Declared the old man when Thorsten did not reply. “I'll wager a hundred of what you like, on Signor Cunning and his skewer!”

“At odds?” Niando replied quickly, cocking his head.

The old man frowned: “Ah, come Tuachall, you’re a fox! What odds?”

“Three?”

“Two!”

“Doubloons?”

The old man crinkled up his face: “There's more of a jingle to Horasdors.”

“Ah, Horasdors it is!” Niando smiled.

Thorsten didn't know what had happened until what he had thought was a woman reached into her hair and pulled it off as though it were a hat, revealing dark curls underneath that were cropped closely to a scalp that was not white but bronzy.

“Why do you dress like a lady?” He chuckled, half about his mistake and half about the man's dress.

“Ha, what say you, Rondrachilles?” The old man smirked. “That Thorsten could not tell cock from cunt!”

Rondrachilles Cunning, if that was his name, eyed Thorsten coldly and with an entirely calm demeanour: “I hear many Thorwallers have that same difficulty.”

That made Thorsten grit his teeth. He wanted to punch the man into his big mouth but knew that moneyed Horasians did not resolve their conflicts that way.

Instead, the old man spoke again: “Fight as well as you talk and we will come to some reckoning on what you owe me. Now, a bumper of red for Signor Tuachall and myself, and show Signor Olafson what blades we have!”

He was ushered away quickly and inside the house past even more guests, ending up in a small room that was full of arms. Blades were laid out on the table, floretts, fencing swords, rapiers...the heaviest thing he could find at first glance was a sabre, but he did not like the balance of it. A falchion then caught his eye and he took it, finding that it was lighter than so much steel had any right to be. This was achieved by hollowing out the broad blade with no less than four fullers, and the oversized bronze pommel at its end proved to be hollow too, upon closer inspection.

It was certainly a Horasian weapon.

But if his opponent was to use a florett then speed was something he desperately needed, so the lack of weight suited him well. And the blade was sharper than any he had ever touched before.

Back outside, Rondrachilles awaited him, impatiently whipping his weapon at the air.

A man declared the rules: “You will fight a Rondrian duel! No grappling, throwing, backstabbing or punching! If quarter is asked...”

“No quarter will be asked,” Rondrachilles cut him off, never taking his small brown eyes off Thorsten. “Nor given.”

“Second blood! Second blood!” Niando protested. “By Praios, do not let them murder each other!”

“Aye,” the old man agreed. “Second blood! The fight's over when one can no longer fight!”

“If quarter is asked,” the man repeated with some emphasis, “victory is forfeit. I announce this duel between Rondrachilles Cunning, indentured servant to Signor Marvallo, and Thorsten Hafthor Olafson, of Thorwal, indentured servant of Signor Niando Tuachall!”

Applause answered him, a way of cheering peculiar to the Horasians. Thorsten guessed that they clapped their hands together because if they were to bang their cups like normal folk they would break them, filigree and made of glass as those cups were.

Rondrachilles paid him a last, hateful glance before bowing to Niando and the old man, Signor Marvallo. All of a sudden, he behaved himself like a woman again, smiling sweetly, bowing and curtsying. Thorsten couldn’t help but laugh at the absurdity of it all.

The performance went on and on, too, with no end in sight. Eventually, Thorsten banged the flat of his falchion against the florett, making his opponent jump away from him and finally starting their duel. They had no armour on, as ensured by the man who saw that honour was kept.

Under these circumstances, Thorsten found himself at a disadvantage. He had no shield and the thin, bendy florett had the reach on his falchion, mitigating the advantage of his longer limbs.

He lunged at Rondrachilles quickly, unleashing a series of cuts that drove the other man back and almost into the crowd of onlookers. But Rondrachilles recovered and answered with three quick jabs that forced Thorsten to abandon his attack early. Then the Horasian smiled as though he was enjoying himself.

Parrying a florett with a short blade proved tiresome and awkward. One could hardly see the bloody thing when it came flying, and had to predict where to slash in order to beat it away. He had certainly underestimated it, as he learned quickly on Rondrachilles counterattack.

Now he was on the back foot, slashing wildly to defend himself and hearing the nearing crowd behind him. He tried hitting the florett hard in order to get past it, but it was so light and bendy that this tactic seemed only to worsen his predicament.

Like a cat toying with a mouse, Rondrachilles left off of him after he bumped into somebody with his back, eliciting joyful laughter all around.

He needed to changed tactics.

Due to its nature as a stabbing weapon, the area in and from which the florett could attack was relatively small, and its capacity to parry was limited due to its lacking stiffness. Thorsten might have tried to catch the weapon with his offhand, but as per the rules grappling wasn't allowed.

It became clear to him that the florett had been fashioned precisely for this, and like a fool he had failed to see it beforehand.

But then, Rondrachilles seemed to make a mistake. Cocksure of his victory he turned his back on Thorsten, returning to the middle of the fighting ground swaying his hips and balancing the florett on his shoulder.

“Swafnir!” Thorsten screamed as he propelled himself forward, but an angry shout from the side-lines cut him short.

Rondrachilles turned just in time to avoid his blow, bringing the florett around in a high arc that whipped across Thorsten's face, tearing it open. The blow was so sudden and violent that he crashed headlong into the dirt.

“Damn it, Olafson!” The old man hissed. “Is it not enough that you're losing but must you turn backstabber?!”

Thorsten pushed himself up and watched drops of his blood drip to the ground. His face burned but at least his eyesight was unaffected.

When he looked up he saw Rondrachilles mockingly purse his lips.

The florett was pointed at Thorsten to ward against any more sudden onslaughts. Should he ask for mercy? It was becoming clear to him that he wasn't winning this fight. Rondrachilles could have killed him perhaps twice already.

He looked at Niando who was chewing his fingers nervously, and decided that he'd rather be in Swafnir's Halls. He had a deal to tell his forefathers, to be sure, and his father and brothers would be there.

He stuck the falchion into the earth and tore off his doublet, then his shirt until his upper body was bare. With the weapon back in his hand, he spread his arms wide, offering himself up.

The crowd was gasping and murmuring.

Rondrachilles seemed taken aback by this, but gave a dismissive laugh to shore up his confidence. He attacked very suddenly with a jump forward, jabbing at Thorsten's heart. But as this happened, Thorsten suddenly saw the opening, his opponent having overextended himself on the thrust.

The tip of the florett grazed Thorsten’s skin as he turned sideways, and for a brief moment he could see the fear in Rondrachilles eyes. Then he brought the falchion around and at Rondrachilles’ neck.

And the crowd screamed.

The Horasian falchion was not only fullered to the extreme but also wrought very thinly. It hardly felt the resistance of the neck it was severing. Rondrachilles' head flew off behind him and a fountain of blood spurted from the throat.

The body stood there dumbfounded for a moment, as if it hadn't realized that it was dead. Then it collapsed and a grave silence fell over the garden.

“Second blood!” The old man hissed ultimately, storming off and tossing away his wine.

Niando smiled after him and raised his cup: “My steward will call upon Marvallo's steward!”

Thorsten breathed heavily. He felt good.

-

“Distorted shadows scream, as Saturn’s children dream. Faded colours bleed. I can see you don’t believe!”

Dari awoke with an aching body and the taste of blood in her mouth, watching small snowflakes drift gently in the wind. It took her a moment to remember where she was, the shaking of the boat and the fool’s singing adding to the madness.

“So come together! And feel it now! Goodbye, farewell! To the nethers of hell!”

He was sitting at the rudder playing his lute, swaying left and right while hatefully spewing the lyrics of his song. He was also wearing his clothes again, that blue and white motley, very worn at this point and stained with all manner of things.

“The hunters now become…the hunted! Here’s the darkness that you…always wanted! So come together! And feel it now! Goodbye, farewell! To the nethers of hell!”

He had tied her to the mast and gagged her with the woollen sock from her right foot but had inexplicably pulled her boot back on. As hard as she found it to believe, this indicated to her that he wanted her to live. Besides, had he wanted to murder her, all he would have had to do was dump her in the river.

They were still going downstream as well, although Krool did not seem to even bother with the rudder. It steered itself every now and then, as if a ghost had taken helm of the boat.

Dari shouted into her sock to let him know she was awake, but his eyes acknowledged her only briefly and with fleeting interest. His lute playing picked up, however. He was shredding the poor piece of wood as though he meant to rip it apart, and still she couldn’t help but notice that there was a certain appeal to his music, even though it was deeply offensive to all common standards.

On his highpoint, Krool started screaming: “Lost children, come to me! We have the answers that you seek! I know, it’s been too long! But at last, the light has gone!”

He leaned into his lute then and went entirely berserk on it, playing as though he had eight hands instead of two. He also started swaying left and right so hard that the entire boat became gravely endangered of capsizing, with cold water inching over the sides.

He was clearly stark raving mad, and his demeanour scared her. She didn’t want to drown in the cold river after having just so narrowly jumped off Boron’s shovel another time.

She worked the wet sock in her mouth with her teeth and tongue until it came out, “Urgh, stop!”

He ended suddenly on a queer note, staring at her as though her call had frozen him somehow. The boat’s shaking subsided.

“As you die!” He hissed after another moment before mercifully lowering his instrument.

Was he going to kill her after all? He seemed unpredictable, his actions not making reasonable sense. She found it very frustrating.

“What are you going to do with me?” She demanded.

He seemed not to understand the question, staring at her like a complete dullard.

Then he shook his head, “I am here to help you. The question is, what are you doing?”

“Great help,” she sneered, “punching me in the face and tying me up like this.”

“You’re not of sound mind!” His eyes widened meaningfully at her, black in the middle but yellow on the outside and shot with blood. “I fear you have gone quite mad, to be entirely honest about it. I mean, there I was, a gentle, helpful soul, and all that comes to your mind is to kill me!”

He hooted to underline his point.

“You ambushed me and stole my boat,” she said, trying to grapple with his lack of reason. “And you delivered me to the inquisition before. Do you know what they did to me?”

His eyes moved skyward, and a smile crept across his black lips.

“I can imagine,” he said dreamily before looking down at her again. “But I also saved you from that blizzard, did I not? I seem to recall my master ordering me to do such.”

She chewed her tongue while taking it in, trying to connect the dots.

“Yes, but why?” She asked. “Why help me?”

She wiggled a little to probe whether she might get out of her bondage, but Krool clearly knew how to take prisoners.

His face twisted with irritation: “The right man does not oft find himself in the right place at the right time. It can be very annoying when it happens.”

Dari thought about what that might mean.

“So, you wanted me to kill the Chosen One?” She asked.

“Taa-daa!” He grinned, swaying his head from side to side.

It did appear to make sense, she had to admit. A Praios fanatic had to be the logical enemy to all the black wizard’s designs.

“But what’s done is done!” She argued. “What do you want from me now, the Chosen One is dead!”

He narrowed his gaze: “Does a gravedigger throw away his spade after the grave is dug?”

She swallowed: “Then what do you want me to do?”

Krool smacked his lips for a moment: “For now it would be of great service if you could remain still.”

He came at her and at once her knife was in his hand. She closed her eyes and waited for the pain. But it never came. Instead, the ropes tying her to the mast loosened and altogether fell off her body.

When she opened her eyes again, Krool was scrambling back to the rudder, letting himself plummet heavily onto the seat.

“If you could refrain from trying to kill me again?” He asked vaguely. “Death is so boring.”

He hooted again, destroying any semblance of reason that he had built.

Her stomach was in knots. When she felt for her other knives, she found that he left them where they belonged, and the one with which she had previously tried to kill him was lying at her feet, unattended. It didn’t make any sense but she took it while she still had the chance, only to then consider for a moment and tug it away half-way into its sheath.

“Where are we going?” She asked, turning briefly to glance downriver.

“Same old, same old,” he hummed. “You are truly mad, you know. What, do you think you can just walk in Varg’s camp and get Steve and Christina out alone?” He tsked and shook his head. “So mad, so mad.”

“You want to help me rescue Steve and Christina?” She asked, her mind spinning.

‘How could he even know?!’

If truth be told, she could use a little help. Just not from this insane creature. Krool was more likely to get her killed than help her, even if helping her was his true motivation, which was doubtful at any rate.

The question of why was on her lips again, but before she could pose it, Krool leaned sideways and spoke past her: “That is what you wanted me to do, isn't it, Master?”

“Slight change of plans, I am afraid,” said a voice behind Dari.

She spun around like a leaf in a storm, knife flashing. Short, slim and beneath a mop of mouse-grey hair he sat, right in the bow of the ship which she knew had been empty merely a moment ago. The black wizard seemed to have appeared out of thin air, or else he had been invisible.

“You?!” She asked, perplexed.

“Yes,” he sighed and spread his hands. “Please don't kill me, it would spoil all the fun. Also, Krool would eat your guts if you do.”

She considered doing it anyway, so afraid was she, but that same fear made her sheath her knife again. He wore simple black robes and carried a large cloth sack on his belt, as well as an hourglass in a copper frame, allowing him to turn it without taking it off. Despite his reclined position was the sand in that clock running down merrily as though it was standing upright, even though it was lying there almost sideways, resting on his leg.

“Krool, let me be captain for once,” he addressed the fool before shouting. “Hard to larboard!”

“Aye!” Krool hooted and obeyed to all reckless extent he was capable off, swinging the ship around so hard that they almost rolled over in the stream. Dari landed hard on her ass and was nearly thrown overboard.

“This is much less fun than I thought it would be,” the wizard complained, clinging onto the wood.

They ended up crashing bow first into Albernian soil, Dari and the black wizard clambering out of the vessel and climbing the riverbank while Krool pushed up the whole boat by himself, including Dari's provisions.

There was something inhuman about that fool, Dari recognized, explaining how and why he had outperformed her on every occasion they met. His momentary absence left her with a chance to kill the black wizard, perhaps. But that would mean her death as well, no doubt about it.

“That's Winhall, way back there,” he pointed. “Or rather what's left of it.”

A whole city, wiped out underfoot, its own walls turning it into a death trap. Dari shuddered.

“What do we want here?” She asked as Krool re-joined them, carrying Dari's things as though they had no weight at all.

“We're going that way,” the wizard pointed towards the Farindel woods, a misty and eerie place in the distance, doused in light.

She had heard stories about it, such as they told in Albernia, and she liked none of them.

The sorcerer pulled his robes tight around himself and started walking, rubbing his arms as he went. Now that Dari got a clear look at him, he appeared a little sick, showing pale skin and a pink nose, and the beginnings of rings under his eyes.

“I should be somewhere else,” he lamented, walking. “But it appears our giant friends didn’t listen to good advice and got themselves captured. Oh, this is bad!”

“Bad!” Krool hooted, happily hopping to catch up. “Bad, oh, so bad!”

Dari stopped at once, demanding answers: “Laura and Janna, captured, how?!”

It was too absurd to picture it in her head. Three armies could weigh either of them down with chains and still not stand a chance in her estimation.

“Urgh,” the wizard sighed. “Fairy magic! Of all things, they had to get caught up in fairy magic!”

She shook her head: “But you are a powerful wizard! And you've overcome the fairies before! Wasn't it you who went through the gate and brought magic back into this world?!”

There had been a conversation between Laura, Janna and Furio Montane that Dari had been privy to in which this and more was mentioned.

“Aye, I waged war on the Otherworld,” he replied, urging her to follow. “You wouldn’t believe the things...I made them yield back the gift, but at a price.”

She stopped again, firmly crossing her arms: “What price? You seem perfectly fine! And why are we walking around like beggars when you can just appear where you want to?!”

There was much more she wanted to say but kept quiet about, such as of what use her presence would be in all this or why the black wizard wanted to help Laura and Janna in the first place. Far as she was concerned, the black wizard could vanish into thin air and do whatever, and Krool could go bugger himself with a particularly thick stick.

If Janna and Laura had truly been captured somehow then she certainly didn’t want any part of their captor, nor was it in her interest to free the giant girls. It was only the threat of Krool killing her that kept her from trying her darndest upon that wretched wizard.

“You make it sound easier than it is,” he frowned. “And much as I would like to, I cannot take you with me. Travelling through the spheres is rather rough.”

She sneered at him: “Oh, spare me. You're not the first mighty wizard I come across.”

‘And not the first one I'll see dead.’

None of it made any sense and she suspected foul play. Her neck wasn't tingling but with this foe that didn't have to mean anything.

The young black wizard gave her a pointed look and smiled: “I like to think I surpassed Xardas in my later years, as did Rohal. Some of his spells, though...in any event, I'm young yet and not as strong as I was.”

Again, what he said still didn't make any sense. He apparently didn't know how time worked, but there was something else that gave her pause.

“Xardas?” She asked hesitantly. “You...you knew him?”

He nodded: “Aye, Rohal and I were his acolytes. You probably know how that friendship ended.”

He said it nonchalantly while her mouth dried up all at once. Tears welled up in her eyes and her knees buckled. The world was spinning before her.

“Are you Borbarad?” she asked, croaking.

Her throat was throttling itself with disbelief.

He turned to face her fully now, this young, grey-haired, unimpressive-looking sorcerer.

“Yes and no,” he said. “I was Borbarad, the Opener of Gates, Wearer of the Demon Crown. But now, I am just me. I don’t even have my crown anymore, at least until I have found all the missing splinters.”

Léon had been afraid of this, she realized. He must have foreseen it, or at least suspected, in spite of how impossible it was. The last piece of the mosaic completed the picture while at the same time it all came crumbling down.

“But...you’re dead,” she pointed out with tears in her eyes. “Rohal crushed you beneath a mountain! How can you be alive?!”

He shrugged: “Time is relative. It bends and twists many which way. It drags on like cold sap from a tree, or flies by you so fast that you cannot even see it.”

He looked down briefly and flipped his hourglass just as the last grain of sand had run its course.

It was all just mindless drivel, she was certain. He hadn’t even attempted to answer the question at all. Perhaps he was mad, just like Krool, only not so shrill.

“You are mad,” she told him as much, making him laugh mildly.

“A moment ago you said I seemed perfectly fine! Now I'm a madman. Isn’t sanity in the eye of the beholder?”

Krool started hooting again ere he jumped up, rolled forward and landed on his head. It was all the time Dari thought she'd need. She reached into her mantle and pulled out a throwing knife, sending it on its way in the same motion. She had always been deadly with her throwing knives.

But Krool didn’t remain on his head for long. The unnatural man seemed to jump just with the power of his neck, landing on his feet and making a dash forward, quick as lightning. Her throwing knife was caught in mid-air, vanishing blade-first inside a black fist.

“Think nothing of it, I mistrust you as well,” said the black wizard, totally unimpressed. “Although, one would think you weren’t the ideal candidate for good deeds.”

She was frustrated. On a professional level, she felt it unfair having to compete with Krool. There was fear as well, although it didn’t seem as though Borbarad was inclined to retaliate. This in turn made her feel even more useless, and the fact that she hardly understood a word of what he was saying compounded everything.

“I have done many bad things, it's true,” she told Borbarad. “But comparing me to you is like comparing a runny nose to the Zorgan Pocks.”

Krool’s hand was bleeding when he offered her the knife, hilt first. It was humiliating, even though he was laughing himself chequered over her remark.

“Apt,” the black wizard pursed his lips in fraudulent admiration. “But I am not what you think I am, nor as mad as I was. By the end, I was beholden to my demons much as they were to me. I do not want it to be that way, this time. That is why Janna and Laura are important.”

It was folly, start to finish. There were a number of men and women who had thought they could tell the giant girls what to do, and none of them had been successful. On the other hand, Borbarad perhaps stood a better chance than any, which made this entire situation even worse.

“You may find your flattened corpse beholden to their sole if you really mean to rescue them,” she said, turning to go. “But it seems I can’t stop you. I wish you farewell!”

“Except you don’t,” he mused, half in jest.

She snapped back around, “Aye, I really don’t! The best thing that can come out of this is if you die and those giant whores stay in whatever imprisonment they are in, forever!”

Between this ominous villain and the giantesses, it was hard to tell who the greater scourge was, though it was undeniably true that the worst outcome would be if Borbarad succeeded, freed Janna and Laura and misused them for his evil deeds. And if she walked away she wouldn’t be able to influence the outcome.

‘You know what you have to do.’

The more she thought about it, the more she realized that she couldn’t turn her back on this, no matter how much she may have wanted it. They probably wouldn’t let her leave anyway.

The black wizard studied her for a moment, then shook his head: “Such a broken, chaotic mind.”

“She’s mad!” Krool croaked, dancing. “She’s utterly, utterly mad!”

Borbarad looked at his fool and then back to Dari, closing his eyes and starting to laugh bitterly.

“What do you need me for then?” she inquired warily. “You are a powerful wizard and Krool is quicker and much stronger than I am. Between the two of you, I’m dead weight.”

With her last words, her breath began to frost and suddenly there was an unnatural chill in the air, rising from the soil. It felt like that blizzard from which Dari had to be rescued by Krool. Remembering it started to breed more second thoughts in her mind.

“The mortal is right,” a female voice said, cold as ice and evil.

Krool’s eyes widened so much that Dari thought they might pop, and he started out singing: “Pardona, Pardona, the bane of floor and fauna! If she doesn’t like your head, she’ll sow it on a pig instead!”

“Silence, fool,” Borbarad snapped sharply, not sounding so content as he had.

The newcomer was some sort of magical creature, Dari was sure at once. She had the appearance of a woman dressed in an elegant white gown that seemed to shine like ice in the light, wrought with silver and pearls. Her long, slender face was ageless, somehow. There were neither lines nor rings under her eyes but also a certain hardness that Dari had only ever known to come with age. The one thing giving away that she wasn’t properly human were her ears which were long and pointy, protruding through her long, silver hair.

“This is bad,” Dari heard Borbarad mutter before he addressed the strange lady. “How nice of you to grace us with your presence, Pardona. Tell me, in what way have I offended you now?”

The ice lady moved slowly, threateningly. She had to be very powerful, Dari assumed. She herself had been mildly afraid before, but this woman made her skin crawl and her neck tingle so much that she found it hard to stay still.

“Is this another one of your pets?” Pardona asked, shooting Dari a glance that reminded her of the way Janna sometimes looked at her. “I could swear I already killed this one.”

“She’s more resilient than meets the eye,” Borbarad said as Dari realized what was being talked about, and that he was blatantly lying. “And she killed the Chosen One! Isn’t that something?”

“So, she has served her purpose,” Pardona concluded.

She raised a finger lazily, as though to squish a gnat upon the wall, but in an instant the tip of her finger seemed to explode in a white mist and a blur of ice and cold flew towards Dari. It was only because the tingling in her neck had become so utterly unbearable that Dari knew the danger and could jump out of the way.

When she looked behind herself, she saw that everything, every last bit of plant life, was frozen white and dead, crystalline and cracking, as though it might shatter upon the slightest touch.

“See?” Borbarad cheered. “If you don’t see her coming, she might as well be the end of you!”

Dari would have liked nothing better. The tragedy was that this mighty witch was staring right at her now.

Pardona cocked her head, piercing Dari with her eyes: “A dabbler with a sixth sense for danger. Pfff, that’s almost adorable. Let’s see how quick she is after I turn her into an ice statue.”

She raised both hands and Dari felt her throat tighten, but Borbarad spoke to distract Pardona just in time.

“And what of your pets, hm?” He asked quickly. “Your pig-headed bear man almost broke my hourglass the other day!”

“Leave my chimeras out of this!” Pardona snapped with a voice like distant thunder. “My creations do not keep me from my destiny!”

Borbarad laughed, riling her up more: “Oh, destiny, is it? Alright then, what’s my destiny? To go mad, just like last time, to lose myself and die eventually of my own folly?”

Pardona flared and raged like a woman spoiled: “I didn’t bring you back through space and time so you could enjoy yourself, you spellbegger! Your destiny is to finish the Demon Crown, to plunge the world into darkness! Don’t tell me you mean to replace the might of all the Netherhells with this vermin!”

This vermin meant Dari who felt a stab to her pride despite being entirely misplaced in the situation. What she was witnessing started to sound like a spat betwixt lovers, bakers perhaps, raging over bread to vent the frustrations of their marriage.

“I will do all those things and more,” Borbarad agreed, trying to calm her. “But I’d like to keep my mind while doing it. I have been working tirelessly, just...give me a little more time.”

“Time,” Pardona echoed hatefully. “I’ve had five thousand years of time. I’ve created horrors beyond count and acquired immeasurable knowledge. What have you done with your time?”

“I’ve got a splinter of the Demon Crown!” He reasoned, padding the cloth sack on his belt. “And I have trodden lose many small stones that shall form an avalanche before long, smothering the world with terror!”

Dari couldn’t help but sense a tad of insincerity in his words, as though he said all these things merely to please Pardona. If what he had told her earlier was true, and Pardona had brought him back to life for a different purpose, then perhaps he wasn’t the real enemy.

Perhaps she should help him.

Pardona’s face foretold nothing good: “Small stones?!”

Dari decided to step in: “Laura and Janna aren’t small stones, exactly. They’re living mountains of evil. They can turn a large town into an Imman field in less than an hour, and never mind anyone caught in between. I know little about demons and necromancy, but I’ve never heard of anything more mighty, not even the gods themselves.”

‘Rohal perhaps,’ she thought. ‘Or, well...Borbarad.’

The black wizard gave her an anxious glance at her words, and the white witch got that look again, as though she had discovered a dog turd on her doorstep. She raised her hand once more, except this time she wasn’t pointing it at Dari. It looked more like she was giving some sort of signal.

“Leave her head,” she said with a cold frown to no one in particular. “I’ll give her a more fitting body later.”

Krool started singing again: “Grakvaloth, Grakvaloth, glutton, liar and a sloth! He is all invisible, unless he has come to kill! Grakvaloth, Grakvaloth, glutton, liar and a sloth!”

Dari had no idea what that meant. This changed in the next instant when behind Pardona a creature appeared out of thin air, apparently straight from the Netherhells. She had never seen a demon, but this had to be one or she would be damned.

It was a lion, vaguely speaking, with burning claws and walking upright. All manner of it was terrifying, such as its glowing eyes and the elongated teeth in its mouth. Its colour appeared grey, like ashes, but that might have been because of the sense of shade in which all this was unravelling as the very world seemed to grow darker.

Dari had seen a lion once in a spectacle, but that had been a caged, toothless thing, a sad sort of monster. The Grakvaloth was something else entirely.

The demon bent its legs and jumped, farther than it had any right to, and Dari had to roll out of the way so as not to be crushed. She spun out of her roll and unleashed her throwing knifes, all burying deep in the demon’s body. They left burning wounds of flame and cinder, but if the demon felt any pain then there was no hint of it.

It didn’t waste any time either, spinning to face her as though it had no weight at all, and coming on quickly. It was roughly twice Dari’s height which made it pale in comparison to any ogress, but it was much quicker and a thousand times more vicious. The burning claws came for her, aiming to tear her apart, but she dodged the first two blows and retaliated the third with her blade, letting the giant cat’s paw run right into it.

It was no good, however. Not only was the demon much, much stronger than her but the burning claws meant that she received a painful sore on her hand and it only made the injured claw burn more.

Worse, she lost her knife, leaving her disarmed and at the demon’s mercy. She could hear Borbarad heatedly arguing and complaining to Pardona, but the white sorceress seemed not inclined to call her demon off.

Dari jumped backwards, spun, and ran, already feeling the demon’s fourth blow on her back. She felt the heat of it, and the hint of claws, but it seemed she had escaped by the skin of her teeth for now. The Grakvaloth was faster than her so she couldn’t even run away. A moment longer and she would be dead, so she ducked and kicked with her leg in a high arch, seeing her boot from below make contact with the claw she had injured.

Her knife was still in there, which turned out to be a fortunate happenstance as the claw was blown apart by her kick into a rain of sparks and ambers. She saw where her knife was going as well and made a lunge for it after rolling backwards onto her feet, narrowly avoiding the beast’s other claw.

But even her knife didn’t give her the edge in this fight. She felt blood running down her back and realized that her earlier escape hadn’t been as lucky as she had thought. Before long she would slow down while the demon showed no signs of tiring.

It jumped at her again, and again she retreated, clutching her tiny, naked knife. After the beast’s landing there was a small opening for a brief moment and she flung herself in range to deal a series of stabs. It felt like putting her knife in airy charcoal, cracking and crunching under the blade and burning inside with strange demonic flame.

Then, the demon’s leg shot out from under it so fast she couldn’t even see it, hitting her square in the chest. She could feel her body cave under the immense power and her feet left the ground. She flew and landed hard on the icy patch that Pardona had made earlier.

It was just awful.

When she tried to jump up, the pain left her unable to do so. She grunted and moaned involuntarily, sounding like some done, broken thing, wreathing there like a worm in the frozen grass.

The evil demon knew it had her now. It bared its dagger-long teeth and snarled hellishly, making her wish it would just get on with it and end her life.

It didn’t intend to toy with her, though. Instead, it readied itself and jumped high into the air above her. When she saw its face coming down, she knew that she would be dead in a few more moments. Rolling to the side would have meant getting crushed under the demon’s foot, useless.

After landing, it lunged out with its intact claw, but just ere it could strike did its face seem to light up and make it stop momentarily. A ray of sunlight had broken through the clouds above, hitting the demon in the eye. There was no time for contemplation.

Dari kicked herself up and slammed her knife in the demon’s belly, holding onto the hilt and drawing the blade down along the entire rump of the beast.

Sparks and ambers were all around her and she screamed and roared like a warrior, cutting, stabbing, again and again, screaming, roaring, howling, hating, murdering.

“Die!” She screamed.

And the demon obliged.

There was a thump in the air, a gust of strange wind, and the demon disintegrated into a mist of yellow dust that smelled awfully like rotten eggs and fire.

Krool hooted before anyone else could react: “Dari, Dari, kills demons in a hurry! Pardona is very wroth, it seems four horns are not enough! Dari, Dari, kills demons in a hurry!”

“She killed a Grakvaloth, single-handed!” Borbarad called out. “And with a profane blade, too! Tell me again, what was it, the might of all the Netherhells? Ah, the light of the habit!”

Dari’s body ached. She would be green and blue by tomorrow, but it didn’t feel as though she had broken a bone. Her knives lay on the ground amidst piles of sulphur and she went to gather them, keeping a hateful eye on Pardona all the while.

The white lady was dumbfounded, boiling to the brim with rage.

“You leave her be!” Borbarad warned. “She’s useful. Don’t make her prove it again or it might be your life she’s taking.”

Dari already contemplated throwing a knife at Pardona, but something told her she didn’t want to know what it felt like if the five-thousand-year-old sorceress really put her mind to it. A stalemate was as good as it got under the circumstances.

“And your Nirraven ploy?” Pardona asked, softening bitterly now.

“Let Varg wait a while,” He determined. “The Jake will only be half so useful without Janna and Laura.”

“What if we used them to improve the Jake?” Pardona urged. “Just to think about it, mh, six arms, four legs…six legs! Three times the stomping!”

Borbarad laughed: “They stomp well enough without your needlework.”

As they spoke, Krool sauntered over, skipping in his step and giving Dari looks of unbridled admiration.

“You kill well,” he said softly through his yellow grin. “Grakvaloths are real cunts.”

She chewed her lip so as not to blare out the truth right then and there. Her eyes sought the sky but found only clouds there, the ray of light gone.

‘Have I been saved?’ She wondered. ‘Was it a miracle or did I just get lucky?’

Had the demon even stopped? She was unsure of her own memory. It had all happened so quickly.

“I can show you a few spells,” Krool whispered. “Spells that will make you go even quicker.”

“It’s time,” Borbarad interrupted them. “We have an enchanted forest to cross, not to mention that curse. The only question is what will try to kill us first.”

Pardona objected sharply: “You cannot mean to go back in there! It would take weeks! The Impaler will grow suspicious of you! Do you even know how long I have laboured to bring you back?!”

Dari had no idea what the thing with Varg and the ogres was about, but she didn’t understand much of the rest either. Perhaps she’d ask Furio Montane what a Jake was, or a Nirraven, or who Pardona was, and what to do about Borbarad. Furio Montane would probably know what to make of all this, if she ever made it back to Honingen. She would rather have spoken to Léon, but Janna had killed him, never caring what far-reaching ramifications it might have.

Krool’s offer was intriguing, if anything. It was always better to be quick. Other than this, it was all she could do to tag along. And if in the depths of the Farindel opportunity struck and she could get rid of Borbarad for good then she would do it, and better yet if she could kill Pardona as well.

Much and more might happen or might have happened if Krool didn’t spoil her plans in the next instant when he suddenly whipped up his head.

“You go!” He told Borbarad briskly. “Dari and I will do it. We’re faster without you frail wizardly lot. I will teach her a few spells, see if I don’t.”

Amazingly, the black wizard seemed rather taken aback by this.

“Are you sure?” He asked. “This is no…”

“Go!” Krool laughed. “We’re safer without you, draw less of an eye from the trees.”

It was very bad, indeed.

-

“One would hope that a field so regularly ploughed would yield one good crop?” Niando Tuachall had quipped after Thorsten was done with his wife.

There was nothing like making love after a hard fight, and for all the absurdity with which Rondrachilles Cunning had comported himself, he had been a decent fighter. It was strange, for Thorsten their duel had endured mere moments, but when he looked at his falchion afterwards, it was nicked and scabbed all over, as if they had battled each other for over a hundred blows.

To be sure, a blade wrought so thinly and with an edge so sharp, it was bound to take damage. But the extent was surprising. He couldn’t keep it in any case, but Niando took him to a renowned swordsmith and bought him a similar weapon, longer and heavier this time. The Horasian couldn’t stop speaking about all the gold he would win by betting, and how everyone would look up to him.

“But perhaps next time we try to be less insulting,” he had laughed on their way home. “Throw a cup of wine in his face, or some such.”

Before any further duels, a visit at a surgeon was also required to see after Thorsten’s injuries. Only the cut on his face was of any worry, but it turned out that most of it was merely a deep, dark bruise. His nose had broken and the skin was torn at the top, but the man said it would heal quicker if he didn’t right it, so that was the path Niando chose.

It was all the same to Thorsten. At first, his nose was blocked from all the blood, but once that was washed out only his left nostril seemed to be working. That was all the nose he required, however, and he was somewhat eager to be fighting again, simply because it made him feel so much less queer.

And if some day, he’d have to fight his way to freedom, then the training surely served him better than letting his skills go to rust.

It turned out, however, that the beheading of Rondrachilles Cunning stirred up much controversy. True enough, duellists oft died of their wounds through blood loss, infection or a stab to the heart. Stabs through the eye, nose, mouth or throat were also not unheard of, and any injury of the brains was usually deadly. A beheading was rather uncommon, however, especially with such a renowned combatant and in a duel to the second blood only.

“Ha! Marvallo had that boy for years, earning him more coin than both his racehorses put together!” Niando had laughed in the wagon.

He did not laugh when soldiers banged upon his door two days later, coming to take Thorsten away. And all his pleading did nothing, not even lying and trying to convince them that Thorsten was just a pretender and not the Hetman's son at all.

Normally, the Emperor and his high court did not mix with the city’s petty nobles and moneyed folk, but word of the beheading at the duel must have somehow filtered through and drawn the interest of higher power. They put Thorsten in irons and took him to the most inner circle of walls where the palace of the Emperor stood, dwarfed by the massive, towering extravagance that was Vinsalt's Praios temple with its tall, painted windows.

There, he was led first to a guard post where they chained him to a table in front of some nondescript man in elegant blacks and a white quill in his hand, brooding over an empty page of parchment.

“I have the honour to be Signor Marabello,” said the interrogator with an apologetic smile. “I understand you are one Thorsten Hafthor Olafson?”

Thorsten nodded, wondering what this was and whether he would be tortured before his execution. The quill scratched over the paper, leaving lines of ink. But he could not read what was written.

“The Olafson, son of Olaf the Terrible?” The man asked.

He gave another nod, eliciting more scratching.

“Tell me of Lionel Logue,” Signor Marabello demanded softly.

Perhaps to incline Thorsten to more speech than he had offered so far, or just as a common courtesy, he took a stone clay goblet and jug from the side of the table, placing them within reach of Thorsten's chains.

“Never met the man,” Thorsten shrugged as he poured himself a cup of red wine. “I met his brother, Léon. Saved his life, to hear him tell it. Heard the other one died.”

He took a swallow to wet his throat, finding the stuff sour and watery. Red wine wasn't a drink he particularly enjoyed, but it was better than nothing.

“Heard it from whom?” The man poked him with another question.

“A woman named Dari,” he answered before deciding to down his cup, using the opportunity to numb his senses in case the Horasian wanted to test the truth of his words by more physical means.

Scratch, scratch, scratch, “And do you think she told it true?”

Thorsten poured, drank and shrugged again: “I don't see why she would lie.”

He also didn't know what the blasted importance of that Lionel character was, apart from being Léon's brother. Léon was a good man.

“This Dari woman, she wouldn’t happen to have hailed from Gareth, per chance, would she?”

He didn't understand this question either, so he shrugged again. If the little woman had ever told him where she was from then he had forgotten. He couldn’t figure out why that would be important in any case.

“I never asked,” he replied before his curiosity got the better of him. “What’s this Lionel to you? Someone important, was he?”

He shouldn’t have asked it, he sensed. The wine was already working him over. He could stand his ground well as any Thorwaller where beer and mead were concerned, and even burning snaps. But wine was different.

Marabello’s hand slipped on the parchment, producing a strange sound from his quill and spraying some ink dots where they clearly didn't belong. The Horasian looked at the mess incredulous for a moment before smiling sourly and reaching for a blotting paper.

“Oh, just the...son of someone whose life is nearing its conclusion,” he beat the blotting paper onto the ink. “An estate, money, titles...heirloom, that sort of thing. Now, I understand you were given passage at Joborn by our honourable General Scalia under the condition that you raze the castle of Engasal. Is that so?”

“I didn’t do it,” Thorsten said at once with a laugh on his lips. “I took one look at it and decided it would take too long. We would have been frozen in on the river.”

Regrettably, there hadn't been much that they could plunder at Engasal either, as some other party had already ransacked the place and evidently killed everyone there. Based on a stone-tipped javelin he had found, Thorsten suspected the same kind of wild men he had fought once before already.

Marabello pursed his lips when he was done scratching: “You seem to admit quite freely to your betrayal.”

“You are going to kill me anyway,” Thorsten shrugged and drank. “Nothing I say is going to change that.”

He wondered if this was the end of his father's bloodline. His brothers were all dead but perhaps some of their children had survived somehow, somewhere. Thorsten himself did not have any offspring that he knew of, of course. Though perhaps Niando's wife would have a child by him, at least if those candles were any good. He was looking forward to hearing what his father would have to say about that.

Signor Marabello nodded sadly: “Aye, that is true, I am afraid. I would free you if I could. You have done great service to Horas by helping Léon Logue. But as it happens there are other considerations, the momentum of war, politics and the hearts and minds of the people. Killing you will be perceived as a victory, you see. And Hesinde knows, we need a victory…”

Thorsten understood well enough and he held no grudge against anybody. The only thing he resented was the accusation that he had helped Horas.

“Could you give me a few days, so I can grow my beard back?” He asked over his wine cup.

It would be dreadfully embarrassing having to sit in Swafnir's Halls without a beard. All his brothers would make fun of him. Other than that, he was ready and looking forward to his execution.

“That is beyond my control,” Marabello apologized. “Though I believe a beard might improve the perception. I shall certainly mention it.”

Thorsten nodded and downed his last cup, surprised when Marabello took his parchment and held it to the candle on the table. They watched the flames consume the words in silence before the soldiers were called upon to untie Thorsten from his seat.

“When you meet his Royal Magnificence, I must insist you do not take liberties,” Marabello told him outside the guard post. “It would be best for you to kneel. I know Thorwalsh knees do not bend easily, but might I ask this favour of you?”

Thorsten shook his head. Meeting the Horasian Emperor was a feat not even his father could boast of, so he was eager for it. But kneeling would ruin the story.

Marabello grimaced but seemed to concede, pressing on with sure, energetic steps into the palace. After a series of hallways stuffed with servants, they entered a huge, lavish audience hall where a group of petitioners pooled before the throne and nobles lined the walls, taking refreshments.

Thorsten's first thought was that he would have liked to plunder this room for riches. Even the ceiling and walls were decorated with gold. Huge portraits and mirrors framed with gold hung upon the walls, divided by silken curtains before glass windows. Velvet carpets were laid out on the floor, some showing pictures of all manner of things or just illustrious patterns. The wood underneath was shiny and black as night, likely pulled out of the vast rainy forests in the deep south where the Horasians maintained their colonies.

The Emperor himself sat upon a gargantuan golden chair on a pedestal, lording over all. Yet he was surrounded by so much luxury that one could not even see him.

A small, young man knelt before the throne with his head bowed, making an oath. He was lavishly dressed in a dark blue cloak with silver fur at the hem and collar, a sword on his belt and a golden crown on his head, albeit a rather tiny one compared to what Thorsten had heard some crowns were like.

“And that you shall faithfully discharge this duty,” the Emperor said with a thin, tired voice, “in my name and under the auspices of the gods, from now on, forever and ever, until the end of time.”

“I swear it!”

Priests pranced around in their colourful robes. The air was full of smells. There was the smell of incense, a horrible, stinking crop that believers in the Twelve fancied, but also the oppressive, flowery perfumes of the nobles in attendance, the smell of food and wine, but somehow yet the distinct stench of sweat and urine as well.

It was enough to make Thorsten gag.

As the priests launched into a hymn, a fat, elegant man with white curls approached Thorsten and Marabello near the entrance.

“Cyrill!” The man smiled, wobbling on like an avalanche of lard and smelling like lavender. “Oh, is that him? Frightfully tall! He will look wonderful! Here, have a look at this pamphlet. We have put together a play that is foolhardy and certainly not for the fainthearted!”

A small paper with writing on it exchanged hands. It had been printed, which was another fancy particular to the Horasians. Thorsten didn’t know how it worked exactly, only that it enabled one to create large amounts of useless writing in fairly short order.

This particular one featured a picture in black ink. It wasn't very clear but it seemed to depict a monstrously large woman about to stomp on a small figure that might have been a man.

“Captivating,” Marabello commented thinly. “Is this copperplate print here, in the middle? Is it possible to print the letters at the same time?”

“Of course not,” the other shook his head, chins wobbling. “We have it applied in two steps. Aye, it takes longer this way, but with all these Maraskans about, we have more than enough able workers. Plus, they take half the pay, work twice as hard, never fail at anything and never complain!”

Marabello nodded: “That must be why they are so beloved by the commoners.”

Thorsten dealt his captor a glance from the side because what he said did not reflect what could be heard on the streets. Quite the opposite, despite many Maraskan refugees’ friendly and even obedient behaviour, the common people were beginning to despise them. They took away all the work, it was said, and undercut the locals’ wages. That being not enough, their gods were queer and unheard of, their customs absurd and their foreign faces offensive to the Horasian eye.

To be fair, they did look rather funny with their thick black hair and flat features. But Thorsten had never met a nicer people.

“With this play we shall breathe great spirit into our cause,” said the man. “Those who see it will get to relive the fall of Thorwal, and all the better for us to have one of the real blood to play the part of Olaf!”

He was pointing to Thorsten with his eyes even while speaking as though it were in private.

“So this would be him,” Marabello pointed out the small man on the picture before shifting his finger to the large woman. “And this would be...”

“We have caught an ogress,” the other replied. “If we can tame her enough we can have her squash him in the Opera House. If not, well, the outside stage shall do. Perhaps that's even better? Larger audience, the more the merrier, as it were. We shall begin preparations momentarily.”

Marabello soured and shook his head: “Is that not excessively cruel?”

Thorsten understood now, at least partially. It wasn't a headsman’s axe that would slay him. But he was fine with it, having already resounded himself to death when they took him from Niando.

By rights, he should have been scared stiff. But if truth be told, it was just another tale he could tell his forefathers while they feasted unto eternity.

“I like it,” he told Marabello, sounding quite confident and also perhaps slightly mad. “Just don’t make me wait so long.”

Marabello dealt him a pitiful look before resuming the discussion: “Be that as it may, I fail to see how this serves our situation. Slaying a foe is one thing; tossing one before such a beast is quite another. The Rondrians are going to call it un-Rondrian and the Libertarians abject tyranny. It seems to remind me of how our current predicament started.”

He was referring to the two rebelling factions in the Empire, roughly speaking. In the Horasian Crown Convent, a congregation of selected people somewhat comparable to the Ottaskin in Thorwal, there were four gross factions. The first were the Hesindians who were deeply invested in progress and culture but held firm to the throne. Next came the Loyalists, sometimes called the Bospharaners.  They were the largest faction and tried to defend the status quo more than anything. The two factions that had split off and risen in revolt were the Rondrians, who wanted Horasia move back to Garethian feudalism up to and including the reintroduction of knighthood; and the Libertarians, who wanted to do away with nobility, slavery, guilds and a whole host of other things.

Thorsten barely understood anything about any of it but Niando had talked about it lengthily on occasion.

“Libertarians and Rondrianers!” The fat man laughed heartily. “The radicals crawling in bed with the reactionaries!”

“Even so,” Marabello argued, increasingly tense, “pamphlets have their uses, but they do not win wars.”

“Uh, what does win wars, pray tell me?” The other inquired with a raised brow.

“Gold!” Marabello stated as if it was perfectly obvious. “It buys soldiers and the means to arm them!”

His opposite tittered delightfully: “My dear Cyrill, you are so correct!”

The man gestured towards the middle of the throne room where the strange ceremony was slowly coming to a close.

“Finnian ui Bennain?” Marabello asked, perplexed.

The kneeling man stood now, revealing him as a slim fellow of middling height with long brown hair, keen brown eyes and the strangest tattoos on his face that bore some resemblance to the markings on runestones.

Thorsten recognized the name and crest of the King of Albernia. Thorwalsh pirates had in the past plundered Albernian ships as well, often leading to difficulties due to Albernia being part of the Garethian Empire and Thorwal being a Garethian protectorate.

“Aye,” the fat man said with a grin so wide it laid all the rest of his face in rolls like bales of cloth. “No longer King but Prince Finnian now, mind you. And the combined treasuries of Albernia and Havena with him, and quite a considerable army.”

“Does he know his principality may not be coming back to him just because he kisses the ring?”

The man swayed his head and wiggled his chins: “Yes and no. He will learn it, I am sure, in the fullness of time. At the appropriate juncture.”

Marabello didn’t seem convinced: “But doesn’t that place him rather high in the matter of succession? Thorsten here has just confirmed what we already knew about the death of…”

He broke off and hushed his voice, a flicker of utter terror across his face.

“Not directly,” the older man grinned. “And even still, it is certainly preferable over handing the throne to Gareth, no? Speaking hypothetically, of course.”

Marabello swallowed hard. He looked sick, as though he had drunk too much wine.

“Does…does the Comto Protector know of this?”

The other turned away his gaze, smiling into the room: “The Comto Marshall is in the field. We have sent word, of course, alas you know how it is with the turmoil of rebellion. Ah, I believe it is our turn at last!”

The foreign king bowed a last time before the throne and was stepping off, leaving a gap for the next petitioner to fill. Marabello grasped Thorsten’s arm to steady himself.

It was all the pity, Thorsten recognized when the three of them set themselves in motion. He had listened to the confusing conversation the entire time, wasting his thoughts instead of coming up with some good liberties he might be taking.

But it was all well and good. After all, he would be dead soon and he could boast in Swafnir’s Halls of how he met the Emperor of Horasia.

-

At one point in history, there had leaked a torture handbook of the CIA. Astonishingly, the techniques described in that book did not resemble those gruesome ones from the middle ages, such as the rack, burning with hot irons or crushing fingers, but seemed at face value to be rather mundane, such as sleep deprivation or having to spend a length of time in an uncomfortable position. Nevertheless were these techniques described as being much more effective than more invasive ones, in addition to being easier defensible if revealed. And it was in the Moorwatch dungeons that Laura got to discover why.

They were chained up on the wall, next to each other in a dark room that smelled like a latrine. A flight of stone steps went down from a wooden door that had a cross-barred window. The torch burning out there was the only source of light. There were additional chains and shackles all over the room, but Laura and Janna were the only people there. And there were additional sets of chains that would have allowed them a modicum of comfort, such as being able to lie down.

But their captors had not opted for those.

Instead, they were chained by their wrists at a height that did not allow them to sit, forcing them to stand there endlessly, shifting from one foot to the next. It wasn't long before Laura's legs started cramping, but she couldn’t stretch far enough to get relief because the chains were too short.

It was a truly miserable situation, and Janna's constant blaming didn’t exactly improve anything. And when Laura said that Janna's comparative lack of boyfriends back on Earth had been because of her constant nagging, it was the temporary end of their friendship.

“I'm sorry,” Laura tried after a while when the silence became so oppressive that she couldn’t take it anymore.

But it was useless.

Equally futile was the attempt of snatching some sleep in this position. Laura tried leaning against the cold, wet wall, hanging herself from her chains, twisting this way or that, nothing worked to get comfortable. In the beginning it felt like perpetually standing in the subway, but after a time her arms started to hurt abominably as well.

It was possible that she would have to spend the rest of her life like this, she reflected. Maybe it would get easier with time. But with more time, the only things that happened were that the pain got worse and a perishing thirst tormented her that grew to become even worse than her hunger.

In her mind, she weighed the pros and cons of licking the wall.

“We are going to die here,” she said into the gloomy emptiness of the dungeon. “If they don't give us water, big or not, we are going to die of thirst.”

She shuddered to think whether their captors knew this. Death might be a blessing at this point. But the way there...

She could hear crying from Janna's side and tried to come up with something she might say, remedying the bluntness of her words. But she came up short. The sobs and wails grew louder and louder until she almost couldn’t take it anymore. Then, they stopped completely and suddenly, which was almost worse.

Much to her amazement, however, Janna could be heard snoring a moment later. That made Laura so happy that she herself started to cry as well.

She reached out in her thoughts to the black wizard: ‘Save us! Take us away from here and make us big again! I will do everything you ask! Anything!’

It was like a prayer.

She half expected to find him sitting on the stairs, a jape and a told-you-so on his lips. But he never showed.

Instead, there was a flicker at the entrance to the dungeon, shadows dancing with the light of an approaching torch. She could hear clinking keys and the whispering of men.

“Best straw I ever drew. Too bad we don’t get to kill ‘em.”

“Girls die if you fuck ‘em hard enough. Never been on campaign?”

“These ones don’t. No need to hold back, boys.”

It was sickening to think about what was coming down that narrow stone corridor and a terror gripped her heart at once. She whistled at Janna while contemplating whether or not calling for help would be a good idea. Count Bragon took himself for an honourable man. Like as not he would have the men gelded if he found out. But the last time Laura had tried to predict what he would do it had landed her and Janna in these dungeons.

“What’s going on?” Janna moaned, half in sleep, still.

Laura answered coldly: “We’re getting raped.”

That woke Janna up good and proper.

The door at the top of the stairs flew open and in walked soldiers with thistles on their chests.

“Farindel's blessings to you, m'ladies,” the foremost man grinned. “We'll be your entertainment for the evening.”

He was a squat, broad-shouldered one with greasy black hair and a mean face. The man behind him was fat and huge, and then followed a rough, mongrel mix of more rapists. Laura counted ten men in total, which she took to mean that she would be accosted by at least five of them, probably more.

“Help!” Janna called out as loud as she could. “Help! Lord Bragon! Devona! Ardan! These men are raping us!”

“Bark all you want, you vicious bitch,” the first man told her. “No one is going to hear you.”

“I've got something here I can shove down yer throat if ye don't quit squealin',” said another man.

Laura tried her luck: “We'll remember your faces, though. Come morning, you'll all be gelded.”

That seemed to unsettle some of the men, but they still kept coming.

“I don't want to be a eunuch,” said the big man. “Quick, cover their eyes with something.”

They formed a half circle around the girls and the big man stepped forth to bury his meaty fist in Laura's face. It hurt only for a moment, of course, but the feeling of helplessness stayed. She resolved to close her eyes for the moment.

“Look at these teats,” another soldier changed the subject, quickly before Janna's chains rattled and she could be heard screeching at him to get his hands off her.

A man laughed and hollered, “Get them naked!”

“No!” Janna twisted and screamed.

When Laura felt a pull on her leg she opened her eyes, seeing a man sawing at her jeans with a dagger.

She loathed the idea of losing her only pair of pants and started to panic, but the cloth, having shrunk with her, did not part under the blade.

“What vile witchcraft is this?!” Asked the man trying to cut open Janna's pant leg. “I've sharpened it this morning!”

“Use mine,” suggested a small man, gross and uncomely.

But a smarter one interfered: “They're wearing armour! Pull the damn things off!”

Laura quickly interlocked her feet in an attempt to deny them, but the big man effortlessly untangled her while three men wrestled with Janna who was kicking like a horse.

‘If I ever get big again,’ Laura thought, ‘I will smash this castle and everyone inside.’

The big man finally got her pants down to around her ankles and pulled out his cock. It was small compared to the rest of him, quite red and crooked. She had never seen an uglier penis.

She could smell the dark ale on his breath as he buried his fat face in her neck. He had hands like hams and fingers like sausages. There was nothing she could do to get him off of her. He lifted her bodily, making her despair over her own lack of weight. She could’ve popped him like a zit before shrinking and now she was but a toy in his arms.

She could feel the tip of his penis on her vaginal lips while he breathed into her ear: “Now you get what you deserve, little girl!”

His voice was dull, his head bald and he had a double chin. That was all she knew. Hate filled her heart and tears her eyes, blurring her mind and vision. She was boiling inside and it finally went over the edge.

“Why do I deserve it, did I smush someone you knew?”

He stopped and pulled away, his tiny blue pig eyes staring at her. She had hit a nerve.

“Daughter? Son?” She mocked him. “Or wife? Did I smoosh your little wifey?”

She laughed cynically. It was the only thing that made sense.

When he buried his hairy, ham-sized fist in her belly, she had to stop for a moment. She couldn’t breathe and felt the severe pain, but then it was as though he had never hit her at all.

‘Kill me,’ she suddenly thought. ‘Kill me now!’

She was going to say something else but it was already enough. Some people were practically silos of penned-up rage and it could take surprisingly little to set them off like a bomb.

He grabbed her head and slammed it against the wall screaming: “You killed my son! You killed my son! You killed him! You killed him! He was my boy!”

The other men gave shouts of alarm which Laura could hardly hear over her skull crashing against the stone. She knew she would be alright but for the moment all she could see was stars as her brain was continuously being battered.

It took four to pull him off of her and she was dazed for several seconds. For half a heartbeat there was a head-splitting pain behind her temple. And then it was gone, as though someone had flipped a switch. She was only mildly out of breath.

“Will you fuck her or no?” A smaller man asked the big man. “Because if you don't then I will. She wiped out all my family, see? Least thing I can do is give her some payback.”

He didn't sound wrathful. If anything, he sounded remarkably calm and calculating, as if it was an equation he wanted to solve. This frightened Laura more than all the rage and strength of the big man.

On balance, as well, it seemed as though the brief altercation had turned sombre the moods of at least half of the men. But this small, mean fucker seemed only more determined.

“Why don't we just kill them?” Asked a younger one, younger than Laura even. “Cut their throats and be done with it!”

The evil man sighed: “Have you been listening? They won’t fucking die!”

“Aye, but you will,” an angelic voice spoke into the room from the top of the stairs. “If I tell my father. Make haste now, before I can see your faces.”

It was Devona Fenwasian, a torch, two blankets and wine.

-

Dari felt weightless. Her feet touched the leaves and thin, fragile branches at full force, but they held her as though she were a feather. And she ran fast. She couldn’t hear when she ran at this speed, nor really see anything other than what was directly ahead of her. Krool had shown her these things, and she loved them.

Three spells he had taught her. And three spells she had learned. Just now she still remembered how she was able to do all the things she did without this unnatural help, but she knew as well that there would come a time when she would forget.

The Treetop Walk was the first spell, allowing her to tread on leaves and branches as though they were solid ground, thus enabling her to walk on top or inside of trees, vanishing here, popping back up there as she pleased. So long as there were trees, no one would ever catch her.

Axxeleratus was the second spell, and an even more powerful one. It allowed her to outrun even the swiftest arrows and made her hands quicker than the eye could see. This was how Krool had caught her knife, she knew, and she couldn’t even begin to fathom all the things she might do with this gift. The problem was that it didn’t last for very long.

Krool told her there would be a few souls camped out by Winhall’s ruins, peasants returned to the land from whence they had been driven when Janna and Laura came. He told her to slaughter a few of them, try out her new abilities in combat. So, she ran to the city, miles and miles away, faster than any horse but not the least bit tired for it.

Each time her spell ran out its power, she had to enchant herself anew, each time getting better for it.

But Krool had warned her, there was an end to her powers, and not having enjoyed long, extensive training, this point would come sooner than she might like.

This didn’t seem to be a problem at first, however.

The walls of Winhall were mostly intact, and any way inside was either barred or guarded by the newly returned peasantry, all in a very crude and makeshift fashion. To overcome the walls, Krool had shown her the third spell, the Walk of the Spider.

This spell made her climbing skills somewhat obsolete, which rubbed her pride a little, but it was nevertheless useful. With it, she could put her hands and feet to any surface, and they would stick there as though they were covered in sap. She could have climbed up a plain wall of polished marble with this spell had she wanted to, and it was very easy to get atop Winhall’s walls.

Inside, the picture was not like anything the mighty fortifications would have led one to expect. There had been houses built in rows once, on either side of roads. These formed large squares that had been pastures, fields and orchards. It had to have been an idyllic kind of town.

Now, there were old, giant footprints still visible everywhere, all the houses destroyed and the trees trampled like flowers. From atop the battlements it looked like a child’s creation wrought of sticks and leaves, trampled apart by a jealous other. Dari could only imagine how many people had perished here, little more than afterthoughts and gory imprints of their former selves, every fibre of their bodies squashed to mincemeat. Janna and Laura had even picked apart the keep, a mighty round stone building, judging by the sorry rest of its foundations and the field of rubble around it.

They would have eaten their fill too, she judged, devouring countless people to quench their hunger as she had seen them do. Men, women and children, everyone would have become their meal.

Could Borbarad be this evil? Or would he be worse? It was a question Dari had no answer to, and neither anyone who could help her discuss it.

A few peasants used the town for shelter now, as a guard against thieves and wildlife, having erected new hovels up against the walls near the gates. They wouldn’t know the answer either, so Dari had no desire to go and speak with them. But neither did she want to slay them senselessly.

There had been a time when, spell or not, she would have murdered them all without a second thought. Now, though, it was an entirely different matter.

It was evening at the time, and the day had been hard on her, learning these new skills from the mad, black fool. Once he got to teaching, he was much more collected, but every now and then he would break out into fits of singing, violence or foolery, and it was very difficult to be around him then.

Dari crawled down the inner side of the walls, using the shadow to conceal herself. The peasants had built fires where they sat and cooked their sorry meals, enjoying the evening for a time before turning into their hovels.

‘I won’t kill them,’ she told herself in her mind. ‘They have done nothing wrong. I will just go by them.’

It felt eerie, walking the path of destruction on the ground, and it reminded her of how small she felt when the giantesses stood above her. It all came back to who would be worse, she thought, them or Borbarad and Pardona. She didn’t even really know what worse meant. White bones bleached by sunlight stuck out of the ground beside her. How could one set free again such an evil?

But if Borbarad was worse and summoned a horde of demons, or any other such things, Laura and Janna could trample them just as easily. What if they were humanities only hope?

She sighed, going ahead. What role the ogres might play, she had not even considered yet, nor the rift that seemed to exist between Borbarad and Pardona.

“Who goes there?!” She was challenged when drawing close to the collection of dwellings.

Men climbed to their feet and reached for their weapons, clubs, scythes, thrashing flails, but also spears and long knives, and one man challenged her with a crossbow.

She worked the Axxeleratus at once in silence, the way Krool had shown her. Crossbows were great equalizers which was why knights hated them. A boy could be taught how to use one in a day, and so long as a quarrel was loaded he could bring down even a king if he was lucky.

“A weary traveller!” She replied, drawing closer. “May I warm myself at your fire?”

“Piss off!” A hard woman spat from behind, a wooden hoe on her hand. “We don’t want you here!”

“Who you serve?” The crossbowman asked, fingering the trigger.

Dari was asking herself the same question.

“I don’t know!” she admitted.

Someone somewhere laughed.

“Sounds like you should go to Honingen,” the man replied. “They don’t know neither, I hear. How’d you get in here anyhow, ‘s there a hole back there we didn’t plug yet?”

She’d rather not answer the last part. It made her neck tingle a little.

Krool had talked to her about that as well, saying that her ability to sense danger would slowly subside the more she became able to use magic intentionally. She was worried about that, seeing how this particular gift had saved her life on several occasions.

She reconsidered her view towards the people in front of her. For one thing, there were now uncomfortably many of them, two dozen at least, too many for her to take on without having to worry. Also, they were being unnecessarily discourteous towards her. After all, she was just one, small woman, alone in the encroaching night with no shelter nearby.

“You should be ashamed of yourselves,” she scolded them. “Here I am, a traveller on the road in need of help, and you turn a crossbow on me.”

A few of the other weapons were lowered and their beholders blushed with shame. But not so the crossbow man.

“Those who need help have to pay with truth,” he declared. “Now, for the last time before I feather you, who do you serve?!”

She decided she didn’t like him, but she wouldn’t kill any of the others if it could be avoided.

“Death,” she answered and leapt sideways at once.

The crossbow thrummed, but the bolt passed her by harmlessly, vanishing into the twilight behind her.

“Farindel take you!” The crossbow man said before dying with her blade in his heart.

She saw the reactions of the others, the shock, the rage, the anguish, and the weapons swinging at her head. It was almost trivial to dodge them, she found, to dance around them and pretend to stab them all to death.

She made her knife point stop at their skin, for she did not wish to kill them, but she could have undone them all had she wanted to.

She could go right through their midst and there was not a thing they could do to stop her.

Ultimately, she spider-crawled up the wall and out of their sight, and tried to run all the way back to Krool and their little camp by the road.

It was on the run back then that her powers subsided and the spells would not work anymore. Worse yet, she felt empty and tired as well, and her head started to throb like after heavy drinking.

She had to walk slowly all the way back instead, feeling every one of her bones, and she finally understood Krool’s lesson.

‘Don’t squander your powers.’

Back there, he already had a new lesson for her: Mibeltube.

“Takes the edge of your day and makes it smooth,” he grinned. “Beats sleep and meditation if you ask me. Hoo-hoo-hoo-ha-ha-ha-hah!”

He taught her how to smoke the herb as well, a peculiar method whereby he formed a funnel with a leaf which he stuck into a bowl formed with his hands from where he sucked the smoke into his mouth. She coughed her lungs out when her turn came, but soon after inhaling did the pain behind her temple go away.

She dreamt of the Grakvaloth that night, very vividly, and after each time she awoke did she find herself drenched in cold sweat. When Krool woke her the next morning she was still affected by the Mibeltube, planless, confused and drowsy. And when they had eaten and drunk a little bit of wine, he insisted on smoking more.

“If your powers fail in there,” he nodded towards the Farindel at the outskirts of which they had made their camp, “you’re dead.”

They set out slowly and mundane. The sky was overcast but for a pillar of light over the forest. It had been there the day before as well. Krool carried the provisions and his lute, but the load did not seem to encumber him very much. The woods grew redder around them as they walked, but other than the unnatural colour there wasn’t anything particular at first that would have made it different.

She was asking Krool questions the entire time about himself, Borbarad and Pardona, but he dodged them all with Axxeleratus speed. He wielded his madness like a shield, talking gibberish or laughing in his awful, shrill way, and if he couldn’t get away with it he would just call her mad. His armour was impenetrable.

Then her neck began to tingle and the red forest started to fight back at them.

A huge, hairless rat, red as blood, was the first thing it threw at them. It had long, terrible teeth and was the size of a pig. Or perhaps it had been a pig once. It was hard to tell.

Krool smashed its head with his lute, allowing Dari to slice it open at the belly.

Then two more of these monsters came. And four more the third time, strange eight-legged roes that bayed for their blood. They were still able to fend all of them off, but each time, it got harder.

She should have stolen spears at Winhall.

When a hairless, red bear with two heads attacked them, Krool decided that it was time to speed things up.

They climbed a tree and started walking on top of the leaves instead of beneath them, and they used their Axxeleratus as well. This way, they could outrun the horrors below, barking, snarling and howling after them.

Then, however, the very trees started to join the fight. Krool made the mistake of stepping onto a live one which thanked him for it by bending sideways and letting him fall to the ground.

“Don’t stop!” He shouted at Dari, but she was so terrified that she had wasted no thought on saving him anyway.

He showed up again shortly after with his lute in splinters and minus the provisions on his back, and a part of his motley in ribbons.

“No good,” he said. “Watch out!”

He pulled her aside, yanking her out of the flight path of another screaming, red rat. The trees were apparently grabbing animals now and flung them like catapults, which was a thing Krool had clearly not foreseen would happen.

He had also not accounted for the birds. A cloud of fluttering red started to rise before them from the forest, moving together like a giant hand that descended upon them.

Dari felt the hundreds of tiny beaks, claws and wings as she and Krool smashed into the swarm. It was all she could do to shield her eyes as her skin and clothing were torn to bloody shreds.

“Faster!” Krool bid her, screaming, but her grasp of the Axxeleratus could not yet compare to his.

He had her jump on his back instead, carrying her along and propelling himself to such velocity that she had trouble holding on. Krool wasn't tall, far as men went, but fiercely strong and at speed the odour that came off him wasn’t so bad anymore.

He plunged down in among the branches, avoiding living trees trying to squash them like mice, got down to the floor and up again, alternating his ways so that whatever the forest did to kill them was always one step behind.

Soon, the worst seemed to be behind them. They were deep and thick into the red, but there weren’t monsters anymore, nor living trees. If anything, it became eerily quiet.

They paused in a grove of trees to rest a while.

“A lot of noise we made,” Krool whispered. “More than I wanted to. This curse is worse than any I've ever seen.”

Dari agreed silently, catching her breath. It was as though the Farindel had a mind of its own.

“How come its so silent here?” She asked softly. “It's almost too quiet.”

“Might be the master knew of our plight,” Krool offered. “Might be he drew the dark fairy elsewhere.”

“He cares about us that much?” She asked, almost laughing.

It seemed absurd, and again Krool didn't answer her question.

“The food is gone,” he said instead. “And our wine. We're lucky I still have some Mibel...”

“Shh!” Dari made when her neck began to tingle like an anthill. “Something’s not right!”

From the corner of her eye she saw one of the trees that formed the grove move ever so slightly. She took Krool by the hand at once and yanked him along with her, out, out of that grove. The fool understood and dashed forward, pushing her.

Behind them, the Grove snapped shut like a giant trap, crushing everything inside it beneath its many arms, like some giant sea monster on land.

‘When did all my foes become so big?’ Dari wondered.

It was a reflection upon the fact that not so long ago the worst thing she needed to worry about were city guards, executioners and perhaps the odd traitor. Now there were giants and ogres, age-old sorcerers, demons, and the very trees trying to end her.

“I yearn for a little less magic in my life,” she sighed.

Krool made a face somewhere between amusement and disgust: “Still think yourself useless?! Come!”

The forest grew less intense from then on, it seemed. But that was only an illusion. Instead of trying to break their bodies, the cursed wood soon switched tactics and waged war upon their minds.

“We’ve been here before,” Dari said time and time again after noticing a tree or a rock she had seen already.

“You’re mad,” Krool determined each time and pressed onward.

Climbing to the very top of the trees and standing on the canopy of red leaves did not tell her anything either. There was thick snow falling everywhere outside of the woods, and there were no landmarks within its boundaries to go by. She knew neither direction nor distance anymore.

“Here, these are our own footprints!” She pointed to a muddy puddle and placed her foot inside to prove her point.

“Ha, ha, ha!” Krool barked. “You are seeing things! Do not believe your eyes! And do not drink the water! I don’t care how thirsty you are.”

It was truly maddening.

After enough instances of this, she became so confused that she had to reassure herself of where up and down were. But when she looked upwards to the skies, the whole world seemed to tilt and she fell upwards, rushing into the great blue nothing before it all turned red and she plummeted hard upon the ground. It knocked the wind out of her and made her bruises hurt, and for a moment there she felt truly lost.

“Stop stumbling, we’re almost there,” Krool said, dragging her with him.

Perhaps she was going mad, she thought. And perhaps Krool was already so mad that the Curse couldn’t harm him. He certainly knew how to be mad and still accomplish things, which was more than she could say for herself.

After another while she turned her head to look at him again but he was suddenly gone, the sounds of his walking that she had heard all this time vanishing along with the realization. She panicked and stumbled through the woods calling out his name. Now nothing looked the same anymore, not even the way she had come.

Ice-cold fear gripped her heart and she doubled back, but once again nothing was as she had left it. Moreover, the woods were not red anymore but green, the colour they should be. She found a rivulet and an idyllic little pond, and fairies, tiny little women with dragon- and butterfly wings, were dancing there.

She recoiled, horrified, stumbling back, falling, crawling, scrambling.

“Krool!” she screamed. “Krool!”

A girl stared at her from the distance, two or three, judging by her size. She had golden eyes and green-brown skin and the same kind of wings on her back as the fairies.

“Have you come to play?” The child's voice asked in her head, impenetrably loud.

Dari turned and ran, but after two steps her eyes opened to the exact same scene with the girl.

“Can you sing Coill banríon for me?” the child asked.

Dari had no idea what that meant and this seemed to enrage the girl so much that she screeched: “Siiiiiiiing!”

The shrill voice pierced Dari's ears like daggers. Her very brains felt as though they were on fire. She shielded her ears with her hands and threw herself down, wreathing left and right and kicking the soil to get herself away.

When she opened her eyes again, she was looking at Krool who was shaking her as though she were a dirt bucket.

“Stop screeching!” He snarled. “You'll bring the whole bloody wood down on us!”

The girl was gone. The green was gone. Everything was red.

“I want to go home,” she croaked softly through the beginnings of tears.

Her heart was beating so mad that it impeded her breathing.

Krool laughed cruelly and lifted her up: “You idiot. You don’t have a home.”

The woods grew lighter around them from there, less thick, and the moonlight was strong. After another while they reached the outskirts of a great and terrible bog, the plains of water and mud glistening in the moonlight, interrupted by the shadows of gnarled trees.

“We have to stick to the path here,” Krool said. “There’s a castle somewheres in there. Your giant friends are inside.”

It didn’t make any sense.

“There’s no castle in the world they would fit in,” she protested. “And they are not my friends.”

Again, Krool only laughed in response.

Borbarad had said that Janna and Laura were at Whispermoor. Dari had pictured all manner of things, but not a castle. The combination presented them with a conundrum. They could either cross the bog safely in broad daylight or attack the castle under the cover of night. They opted for the latter, walking a causeway in twilight with deep, black bog on either side them that Krool said would swallow them up and kill them if they fell in.

It was just the thing Dari wanted to hear with her feet blistered, legs cramping and eyes yearning desperately for sleep. But there was no arguing.

-

Honinger Crackers. They were served in a bowl of hot peas pottage and came with a small side of mustard and honey, a lovely, if mundane dish.

Linbirg stared at the bowl after taking her first bite, thinking nothing of it at first.

‘What was his name again?’

She couldn’t remember. His hair was red, his smile brazen and gap-toothed. And he had had such lovely boyish eyes.

“Something wrong with it, milady?” Asked the serving woman.

How long she had been in this damned room, she did not know. It had to have been weeks at this point, and something had happened. She didn’t know what, but it seemed that she was no longer the centre of attention, if she had held that status at any point in time.

A certain restlessness was in the air. Much was going awry. No loud noises were to be heard in the palace, except for whenever Franka screeched at her servants from the top of her lungs.

Something was happening. Linbirg could feel it in her bones.

She shook her head all the same. Surely, the boredom and resignation were making her see things. They were just sausages and mushy peas, and a lovely little spoonful of mustard and honey. Only the sausages tastes exactly like the one the boy had given her.

“No,” she said, and took another one.

Crack!

The crunchy skin parted under her teeth, but soon they were opposed by something unfamiliar. She felt it with her tongue. It was paper.

“Are you certain?” The serving woman inquired. “You don't seem to be liking it, I can have them cook you something else.”

The servants attending to Linbirg had been a lot more appreciative of their task as of late, ever since the old lady apparently turned into a raging dragon. With her chambermaid especially Lin had established something that might almost be called a friendship of sorts.

She stuffed the paper into her cheek and swallowed, quickly taking another bite and a spoon of porridge.

Opportunity to look at this strange object came only after she had eaten the whole entire supper, and the serving woman stood to clear away the dishes.

The headsman at the door was still there, but he was napping, as usual.

‘It's surely nothing,’ she thought as she fished the object from her mouth, trying to dampen her excitement. ‘Just a bit of dry skin slipped into the stuffing.’

But it was paper, Honinger laid paper, in fact, made from old linen rags. It had been rolled up tightly and secured with a thin thread of leaf.

Her fingers shaking, she unrolled it, finding to her great dismay not writing but some silly picture.

‘Is this a jape?’ She thought. ‘Is someone mocking me?’

Hard to see at the small size, there seemed to be a lady atop a tower beneath a full, round disk in the sky. Below the tower was water, and an arrow pointed to it downwards from the lady.

‘Do they want me to kill myself?’

But there was a boat as well, on the far side of the water, next to an owl. That part, she wasn’t too sure about. It would pay to keep an eye out, however, as unlikely as it was.

The disk in the sky could be either sun or moon, but jumping into the lake in broad daylight would surely result in being seen. The disk appeared to stand at its highest point as well, right at the edge of the paper.

‘Midnight?’

She stuffed the drawing down her bodice and turned to the serving woman: “Is it a full moon tonight?”

The window was barred by glass but could be opened to let in fresh air, as was usually done in the morning while Linbirg was still under her covers. The problem was that her foot was still enclosed in a shackle.

The woman gaped at her: “Why yes, Milady! Can you feel it? I can never sleep when Mada's Mark is full.”

Strangely, she threw a brief glance at the headsman and blushed.

“So do I,” Linbirg lowered her head and smiled. “But I feel it helps to look at it for a while before bed. Could you take off my shackle so I can sit by the window for a while and gaze? Please!”

“I'll...” the woman looked to the snoring executioner by the door. “Won't that be cold?”

“I'll just wear my covers!” Linbirg exclaimed happily. “Please, I couldn’t stand a whole night tossing left and right, and it chafes my skin so!”

The woman sighed but ultimately complied after getting Linbirg ready for bed. The executioner was not entirely in favour of the idea but was ultimately persuaded when the serving woman touched him lightly on the arm. Linbirg was not under guard at night. Prisoner or not, the Galahans possessed enough honour not to lock a young lady in a room with a man who might take advantage of the situation, at least not for long periods of time.

It was bloody freezing outside, and the moon was full. Below, where the moat was not dipped in shadow, the light reflected like crystalline rock, and there was a clean, long reflection of the moon in the middle of it all.

‘Behold the freezing moon,’ she thought queerly, and shuddered at the grim realization that the moat was covered in ice.

If she jumped, she would shatter. And if not that, then she would freeze to death and drown. It was stupid. She closed the window and slipped into her bed to get warm again, cursing herself for being such a fool.

She could feel a cough in the back of her throat and her nose itching already. The room was cold and she was alone. It was all she could do to roll up like a cat and sleep the night away.

Midnight was still long hours hence. And like as not, the drawing had merely been a silly joke. Or worse, it was some plot concocted by Countess Franka, like the one to kill that wizard and confine Linbirg here.

‘The sausage, though...’

She looked at the drawing again, then crushed it in her fist. If it was true, then she would go to Mara and the others and have them lay Galahan Palace low. She would have the old lady torn limb from limb and hang one bit of her from every gate of Honingen.

‘And then?’

Revenge was obvious. What to do next was a much greater issue. The titanic monsters had not returned yet, and it increasingly seemed as though they never would. If she could regain control over her ogres, that left Linbirg in a very powerful position, surely.

‘To the Netherhells with them all.’

She pulled on the simple dress she had been given to wear and got the fur-lined cloak they put her in when taking her to see Mara. She was tying up her shoes when suddenly the key scraped in the heavy wooden door.

Lin had never jumped back beneath her covers quicker.

In the gloomy light, the serving woman was shuffling through the room to the window, making sure it was firmly closed. On her way back, she came by the bed. Linbirg, pretending to sleep, almost started crying, expecting the shackle to be put on to her ankle once more, at which point it would also be discovered that she was dressed. But the serving woman didn’t even look at her feet, only standing there for a moment before pulling up the covers a bit tighter. Then she left again, quickly as she had come.

And she didn’t even lock the door.

Linbirg waited with bated breath.  Nothing happened, not for a very long time. With a beating heart, she snuck to the door and pushed it open, half expecting an ambush. If the old lady was looking for a pretext to kill her, then maybe this would explain the strange things occurring tonight.

But behind the door there was nothing, only the stairwell leading down into the palace. She stopped and listened, hearing a soft scratching on wood, like from a rat scavenging for food. It seemed to find a scrap eventually and munched it noisily in the darkness.

A light source would be good to have if she went down the tower, but then again nothing would be surer to give her away. She knew, roughly, where there were things that might make noise if she bumped into them, from those times she had been presented to the ogres with a knife at her throat. And her shoes were not particularly loud.

‘I wish I was brave,’ she thought, still standing there.

Her father had taught her that bravery meant being able to act despite being afraid. That thought gave her courage.

She was down the first flight of steps before she even knew it, and despite not clearly knowing what she wanted down there. She could either go left or right now, or continue downwards, but she could hear a patrolling guardsman and see the light of his lantern at the end of the right corridor.

She opted to go left, past doors left and right that had rooms with windows opening to the outside or the courtyard respectively. All doors were shut but there was a burning taper on the floor that someone must have irresponsibly left there, just next to one of the pillars in the wall that held up the roof above them. Such things were a great fire hazard, and some servant would surely have the skin off their back if the countess found out.

Linbirg thought about retrieving it in hopes of perhaps finding a way out of the castle that didn’t involve jumping into ice-cold water. It was a forlorn vanity, to be sure, and perhaps she would have done better just to wait for midnight and jump if there was any hope at all.

“Be quiet!” A familiar, male voice grunted to her right, yonder the light of the taper.

Her heart jumped. She could hear a woman suddenly, too, breathing heavily out of the shadow created by the large stone pillar in the wall. As she edged around, she could see the back of the headsman with his britches around his knees, and just at the edge a of skirt belonging to the serving woman.

She knew what they were doing, of course. There hadn’t been feasts often at Lionstone, but they had observed the traditional days of celebration such as the harvest day, and on such occasions much ale and even wine was drunk in their halls, leading to many a large male hand slipping up or down a serving woman’s skirts. Delightful squealing and other noises could be heard later.

Seeing the scene in the gloomy light fascinated Linbirg. There was something animalistic about it, a dirty, physical act that was as natural as anything but still had to be carried out very much in secret. In the songs it was all feelings and flowers. Here it was raw meat, rough hands, grunts and the shuffling of feet.

A part of her wished she could be that serving woman.

She had to pry her eyes away from the rhythmic movement and turn back the way she had come. The patrolling guardsman down the other corridor had apparently decided to take a rest, leaving only one way open to her besides going back, further down another flight of steps into the palace.

She was familiar enough with this way too. It was the quickest route to the outside, but at this time the drawbridge would be pulled up, making escape impossible.

There was a door in the cellars somewhere, opening right atop the lake. It was a postern gate of a fashion, even though its position stood out to anyone with eyes, and servants sometimes used the rowing boat tied up on the bank to haul cargo straight into the cellar that way.

That door had to be well-guarded, however, so as to prevent intruders breaking in, making the winterly palace into a veritable prison. The more she thought about it, the more she had to concede that jumping into the cold water was the only option. Hopefully the ice wasn’t too thick.

But when she arrived at the stairs, she found herself suddenly confronted with a man coming up from below. She could barely see him in the gloom. He looked odd, with a huge bulbous head and large, almond-shaped eyes. She was startled by him so much that she almost shrieked. It was all she could do to turn her head away and haste up the stairs as quietly as possible, hoping against hope that he mistook her for one of the servants.

Absurdly, she saw him turn on his heel and do very much the same in the opposite direction. She didn’t know what to make of that before she could hear his voice.

“Shhh! Little girl!” He whispered up at her, his feet no longer moving.

She halted too, swallowing hard. His voice had a hint of some very strange accent to it, one she had never heard before. It wasn’t very strong, however, and his voice was very soft and soothing.

“Little girl! Are you the one from the tower? The girl that killed the wizard?”

‘No!’ She wanted to say, but no words left her lips.

She could hear him climb after her, her feet frozen in place and her mind cursing herself for being so afraid.

“Have no fear,” he went on, climbing. “Have you escaped from your cell too?”

‘Too?’ She thought. ‘Was he another prisoner of Franka's?’

If so, then they were allies, surely. Or at least they had a foe in common.

“Did you put the paper in the sausage?” She whispered when he stepped into her sight.

Light fell from her room through the open door, illuminating him a little more. His head was bulbous not on account of malformation but a long snow-white cloth that he had wrapped around his head to form a very complicated kind of hat. He also wore robes that were strangely cut but wrought in a very expensive-looking blue. His skin was copper, his goatish beard sprinkled with white. And he had big, almond-shaped eyes.

“Paper sausage?” He asked, clearly perplexed. “Is this a riddle? My customs forbid the touching of pork, little girl. Pray forgive me, I do not understand.”

It all fell into place in her head. She had heard tales of these people who shunned pigs and dwelt where the sun burned so relentlessly that it turned their skin brown even before birth and made men and women hot-headed.

“What do you want?” She asked him, dropping the issue.

“Escape!” He whispered feverishly. “The same as you, I gather? Do you know a way out?”

She hesitated for a moment while on his face the pleading expression rested.

“I do not know you,” she finally said. “If I knew how to escape, why should I tell you?”

“Because I am your friend!” He replied. “I know you have not committed this murder!”

This was very obviously a trap. The only way he could know was if Franka had told him. Nevertheless, it felt good to hear him say it. The servants were mostly friendly now, but just after her renewed imprisonment they had treated her like a demon and called her murderer.

“I thank you,” she replied courteously, “but I do not wish to escape. I have everything I need here. All I wanted was stretch my legs a little. Good night.”

She turned and went up the steps wondering if she should call for the guards in order to ingratiate herself more believably, but on the off chance that he was genuine she decided against it.

“Do you know the countess is going to kill you?” The man asked.

She stopped again, weighing his words. It didn’t make sense.

“Is she?” She asked. “Why now? She had weeks and weeks to do it and all she’d need do is give the word.”

He pulled back slightly.

“I do not know why, little girl,” he confessed. “All I know is they are building gallows for you. They will hang you for murder.”

That made even less sense. Commoners were hanged, nobles customarily beheaded. But perhaps they thought differently about her, given that she was still a child by law. She was uncertain. All she knew was that she didn’t trust this stranger.

‘And the drawing in the sausage?’

The circumstances told her that it was part of whatever ploy this was. But the sausage was the red-haired boy’s, no doubt about it. It seemed excessive and paranoid, even for Franka Salva Galahan.

If Linbirg was hanged, then Marag's Children would break out and flee. And with a bit of luck they would cause quite a bit of damage in the process. Lin wouldn’t be around to see it, however, so the thought was only of little consolation.

‘If it is true.’

She tried to test him: “How do you know I did not kill Master Furio?”

The man swallowed and lowered his head: “Because I made the poison that did. I made it at the behest of the countess to kill the two giant women. When the giantesses left and did not return, and she sought my cell to have me poison a bit of pipe weed instead, I knew she had resolved to slay my colleague. I should have...”

He broke off, sounding tortured. Linbirg felt bad for him.

“It wasn’t your fault,” she tried to console him softly. “You had no choice. The countess might have killed you.”

“Death is nothing,” he lamented. “I should have refused or made a weaker substance to keep him alive.”

She shook her head: “Then one of her knights would have smothered him with a pillow. If Franka wanted him dead there was nothing to be done.”

“You are very wise, little girl,” he conceded solemnly. “Now, will you take me with you, escape from this palace?”

She was still unsure. He might still be Franka’s creature.

“How did you escape from your cell?” She asked. “I mean, how do I know you are truly a prisoner here?”

He smiled mildly: “My guards eat my scraps and drink my old wine. It was an easy thing. I have done this on many a night, but this is the first time I saw you.”

His voice was full of respect, as though he thought her some master of the shadows.

She swallowed to set him right: “The servant left my door unlocked. I got lucky, is all.”

“Oh,” he seemed disappointed. “Then, do you know how to escape from this palace?”

She wrestled with her thoughts for a moment before giving him the nod.

“I have received a note,” She dug it out of her bosom and handed it to him. “It was hidden inside a sausage.”

As soon as she said sausage, he dropped the paper like a hot cinder.

“Rashtullah,” he muttered a prayer, “forgive this unworthy servant, for I have sinned.”

It was truly silly.

She crouched and snatched the paper from them steps before urging the strange man to follow her into her room. She didn’t feel very sure about it, but on the other hand was it good to hear another opinion. With the moonlight from the window, she held out the paper for him to study it.

“This is a childish plan,” was his verdict after another while. “Who drew this?”

“A butcher’s boy,” she said. “I do not know him very well, but I know his sausage.”

He gave her an uncouth look before returning his gaze to the paper, “They want you to jump into the moat at midnight?”

She pressed her lips together: “It seems the only way out. I fear the ice on the lake, though.”

“It is not thick yet,” he replied immediately. “But if your butcher’s boy does not make for a good fisherman we might drown. Can you swim, little girl?”

She shook her head. The bogs in the Bordermark were too dangerous. One might go in and never come out again when one’s feet became stuck inside the mud.

“I have thought about this too,” he continued. “There is a potion that allows the breathing under water. But I lack a crucial ingredient.”

He went to the window and opened it, peering outside.

“Neither do I know any spells that might be of use here. There is only the jump, and a cold, wet splash below. But if we reach the bank...”

So he was an alchemist and a wizard, she thought. But if she didn’t have to jump alone, that might be all the magic she needed.

“Will you do it?” She asked him.

He inclined his head, “The countess may have use for me yet, but my lavish life has left me most unsuited for servitude. I will jump with you, little girl, when the time comes.”

She told him that they had best lay low until midnight, so she slipped back into the covers while he did his best to hide in the dark corner next to the bed. To pass the time, they whispered to each other.

The stranger’s name was long and foreign, and she could neither remember nor really say it correctly. He told her to call him Retoban, and that he was named after a great emperor from long ago, called Reto.

“He was not the greatest of Emperors,” Retoban admitted. “But Emperor he was, and Prince of the Tulamids too, and under him the land saw a brief blossom, so his name rings well. He chased his own, corrupt family off the throne and conquered Maraskan for the Garethian Empire, as you may know. A sad thing the servants of evil have torn it asunder.”

“What is Maraskan?” She asked, feeling stupid.

He told her, and how it came to pass that the evil men took it, and so much more after that. For these evil men were the last remnants of the most evil man of all, a black warlock by the name of Borbarad who wore atop his head the Demon Crown. He was killed by a great white wizard named Rohal who threw a mountain on top of him. The Demon Crown was shattered but several minor evildoers gathered its splinters and used the evil power therein to carve out evil kingdoms for themselves, thus bringing the island of Maraskan under their heel as well. Gareth was hard at war with these forces of darkness. Linbirg remembered vaguely that there had been talk of Albernians going east and joining in that fight, even some from the Bordermark too.

It was all very fascinating and scary. She thought that maybe, if she got Marag’s Children back, she might go east too. Surely, a few evildoers in black robes stood no chance against ogres.

She wanted to tell Retoban of the idea when from the open window they heard an owl's call.

“By Rashtullah's mercy!” Retoban exclaimed. “That’s it! That’s the signal!”

It was time for them to jump and they both rushed to the window. The cold was biting Linbirg’s flesh like a rabid hound. Down below, where the boat was, they could hear splashing and the cracking of ice.

“Oohoo! Oohoo!”

Then they saw it. She could even make out the butcher lad's copper hair, gleaming like ambers in the moonlight. She hadn’t expected everything to go so smoothly.

Retoban helped her onto the windowsill.

“Hold my hand, little girl,” he said.

And then they jumped.

She landed slightly after the alchemist, butt-first, crashing through the sheet of ice. Something hard and sharp slashed over her face and left a streak of stinging pain and warmth there. The rest was all frozen, all at once, and she could neither breathe nor see.

Something was pulling on her hand in the darkness while she seemed to be sinking like a stone. Already the end of her breath was approaching fast. She was scared and confused and the pulling on her hand was becoming so incessant that she tried to fight it.

But then, all at once, the world grew a little lighter and another hand, big and strong, reached down through the mist and pulled on her collar.

When they dragged her out, she was coughing and wheezing, and they told her to be quiet. Retoban was already in the boat, his chattering teeth smiling. They were back on dry land before she even knew.

“Out of these clothes, Milady,” the butcher’s boy urged. “Quickly!”

“Who's this now?” Another young male asked, significantly bigger than the red-haired one.

He was referring to Retoban.

“Another prisoner,” Linbirg wheezed. “You must help him!”

“Aye, just be quick about it,” the big boy complained. “If we're seen, they'll hang us.”

There were three more of them, all young and lowly, two boys and a girl. They cut Linbirg out of her dress and almost did the same for her small clothes, but the girl told them off and gave Linbirg a blanket to roll into.

“What of Retoban?” Linbirg whispered. “Do you have a blanket for him?”

“No need, little girl,” the strange wizard alchemist smiled. “I will leave you here. Just know that you have my eternal gratitude.”

Strangely, for as little as could be seen of him in the moonlight, he looked completely dry.

“You ought to come with us,” the butcher’s boy said. “If the old harridan catches you...”

“That is precisely what will happen if I go with you,” replied Retoban in a tone that brook no argument.

He turned to go.

“Wait!” Linbirg whispered. “Tell them! Tell them I didn't kill the wizard!”

The girl's hand on her shoulder seemed to slump at the mention of the crime.

“What does that mean?” The big boy asked, incredulous.

Retoban turned back to face the group: “The Lady is afraid you would hold it against her if you thought her a murderer.”

“Murderer?!” The big oaf echoed. “Killing scum like that is no murder! He stole the Jar of Holy Theria, he did, and raised the dead too, and like as not gave our town the Bloody Diffar!”

Retoban smiled mildly: “May I inquire as to why you have rescued the young Lady?”

That question burned under Linbirg’s nails as well, at least now that he had put it.

“Two reasons,” the red-haired boy declared. “For one, I bet that I would kiss you some day.”

He gave the bigger boy a stern look before stepping in and giving Linbirg a quick, dry peck on the cheek. Linbirg was too perplexed and scared to defend herself.

“That don’t count!” The big boy objected immediately. “Only on the mouth counts, on the cheek don't! And with tongue!”

While she wondered whether they could truly be so silly, the boy sighed and took her face in his hands. His skin was still a bit damp and cold from the water but there was a rough kind of warmth beneath it that made her grow soft.

He looked deep into her eyes and she felt like she was falling.

‘So green and deep,’ she thought. ‘And so warm too.’

Her lips parted under his and she welcomed his tongue in her mouth. It tasted vaguely of mustard and honey, not that she minded. She didn’t know how long it lasted but it was way too short.

When he pulled away, she almost went after him, and only then remembered that she should have defended her virtue.

“There!” The boy declared. “Happy now?!”

Linbirg’s head was spinning. Part of her felt violated, lifted and left to fall again, back into those cold, dark depths of the water. Another part of her wanted to climb all over him, tear his clothes off and feel him inside her, just like the headsman and that serving woman. If only they had been alone.

“And the other reason?” Retoban inquired from the side.

“Her ogres,” replied the boy. “The giant whores are gone. Everyone says so. If we have the ogres, we can finally do what the Vulture wanted, smash the countess' men and be free!”

It all came down to Marag’s Children, she realized. It was rather sad. If this boy thought that he could do this to her and use her like Franka had used her then she would have Mara pull his head off, see how he liked her then.

“Take me to them,” she said, hiding her feelings.

“Aye, we would!” Said the big boy. “If the lovebirds were finally done yapping!”

“One last thing,” Retoban insisted. “The Jar, I am informed it is more than just a relic. Fill it with honey and feed those afflicted by disease, that pilgrims once again come in droves to your city. Then you shall prosper.”

“Are you sure?” The butcher’s boy asked, suspicious. “My father said it’s just some tale to make coin for the temple. Else, why keep it locked behind glass?”

“As with most things,” the alchemist smiled in the moonlight, “try it and you shall see.”

They parted ways with Retoban then, hasting along the tree-lined road to Honingen. Not a soul was in sight anywhere, but Linbirg worried that they may have trouble at the gates.

“We bribed a guard,” the boy assured her briskly. “In any case, we won’t have any problems once we have your ogres.”

They veered off the path and moved through the open fields that surrounded Honingen, to the left, not the right where the ogre camp had always been. There was something in the moonlight looking like a giant, queer rock cliff that had sprung up from nothing. Linbirg was certain it hadn’t been there before.

“What is that?” She asked the butcher’s boy frightfully as they neared the strange thing.

It seemed to have an unholy aura and was even larger than she had believed, larger than Galahan Palace.

“Queen’s sleeping bag,” he replied, somewhat brisk. “Don’t know which one, her or the other. Our lady wanted to put your ogres in a log hall but people kept setting fire to it, everything else they built too. They tried to burn the sleeping bags as well but the fabric wouldn’t catch flame. Unnatural if you ask me. What kind of cloth doesn’t burn?”

She swallowed hard and shivered from cold and fear. In the fields, Janna’s and Laura’s footprints were still evident, each the size of a small pond and stark reminders of their terror. Closer to this new dwelling, ogress’ footprints were everywhere, and the water that had pooled in them had turned to ice, reflecting the moonlight. The grass around, where it still grew, was covered in hoarfrost and Linbirg’s breath frosted in the air.

The giant sleeping bag made for a queer sort of structure, she found. Big stones weighed down the opening to keep it shut but in the middle there was a tunnel, large enough for an ogress to crawl through, constructed from large beams of timber like the entrance to a mine shaft. The inside had to be held up very much the same way, she assumed. It was a scary thought that this sleeping bag had once been filled by a single body and now all of her ogresses, huge monsters each in their own right, could fit inside.

“They dwell in there now,” the boy said and pointed at the entrance when they arrived. “You go and do what you have to do. We'll wait here.”

Linbirg nodded. She wanted this, even though her tummy was utterly in knots about everything.

While leaving them, feeling their eyes in her back like knives, she thought of how gullible they were. After all, there was nothing to stop her from having Mara stomp them all and be on her way. Perhaps that would be better. They trusted her on sheer goodwill alone when they might just as well have put a blade to her throat and make Mara obey, just as the old countess had.

That boy, though. That damned boy. Linbirg wanted him, even though she still didn’t know his name.

What lay in front of her was dark, a huge, black nothing from whence hardly a sound could be heard. The fabric she stepped on was queer even underfoot, soft and somewhat bouncy. She didn’t dare touch it. It seemed to drink all sound as she stepped in and soon she was lost in the darkness.

The air was stale and musty, and full of smells. There was the fabric’s own fragrance, but also the mud that was smeared on the ground from the ogresses’ feet when they entered after their hard days’ labour. Then there was the distinctly sweet smell of femininity, and Linbirg had to pinch her nose to move on.

She sensed that her surroundings had become larger, the smell of the fabric not so strong anymore, and then she heard the ogresses snoring in front of her. She was still unsure whether or not she should call Mara’s name when suddenly she heard sniffing. Then everything happened very quickly.

“Isenmann!”

It was a cry of jubilation, awkward for the hour, but the walls of the sleeping bag drank it. A shadow seemed to rise in the darkness and a hand came upon her like an eagle on its prey, almost ploughing through her in its haste.

“Isenmann!”

Other ogresses stirred while Linbirg was lifted, sniffing the air, muttering, rising, rustling on the strange fabric floor. A giant head bumped into the arm that carried her and shook her violently. She was but a pet to these giant women, she felt. They treasured her, aye, but if that somehow where to change then her life was over.

The ogress that had taken her was not Mara as she could tell by the voice. She had never learned the individual names of the others, all too similar to tell them apart and useless in the face of their inability to speak the common tongue. Linbirg understood the wet kiss that was placed upon the entirety of her face well enough, however.

“Mara!” She called out, trying to explain. “Mara!”

There was no reply, even though the entire great hall of cloth was now awake and teeming with giant, writhing bodies, bristling with excitement.

‘Excitement is good,’ she decided. ‘They are happy to see me.’

The thought hadn’t resonated quite fully even before she felt herself being lowered, her captress’ hips already wiggling from side to side on the ground. There was not a thing Linbirg could see where she was going, but she could certainly feel, hear and smell. Her blanket was torn off along the way and vanished, and she was struck with how warm the giant bodies were.

She was happy they didn’t freeze but also unhappy that the ancient pact that bound her to them had to be consummated now leaving her newfound friends and rescuers outside, shivering.

The first ogress was uncomfortably rough with her as well. She pinned Lin into the upholstered floor with her sex, lifting her arse off the ground and starting to grind over Lin’s body. Each time the immense pressure ran over her chest she thought she’d cave in and die, but the cushioning beneath was much thicker than she expected and gave way ever so slightly more than her body. Mercifully, the ogress finished quickly, and Linbirg remained whole, if covered head to toe in slime.

“Isenmann!”

Done with the first one, she exchanged hands in the darkness. Her ogre army had a lot of penned up lust. This next one all but kept her on the ground, insisting that Linbirg serve her with her mouth there. It was as hot as a smithy, and before long her throat craved water and her jaws a bit of rest. But there was none to be had.

Three dozen ogresses she had had when coming to Honingen. How many were left, she didn’t quite know anymore. But it was a busy night.