Teagan snapped the lid to her tomkin box shut, hooking it back on her belt. Hannah luckily didn’t see it, and paid the closed box no mind, busy packing her own bits and bobs up. Teagan, her headache fading quickly, forced herself to her feet before surveying the lands ahead. It was all the same as when she’d seen it from the mountains, but being closer to the ground, it all seemed so much more vast. The steppe-like plains abutting the mountain, which appeared to be little more than a long strip before, now seemed to stretch for at least a mile before they even began to transition into sagebrush-speckled desert.

 “How is it that it’s all desert and dry steppe on this side of the mountains, but a day’s travel across takes you to verdant forests and lakes? I don’t get it.” Teagan pondered aloud.

“It’s the mountains themselves,” Hannah replied, “they tower higher than the clouds in many places. They catch the clouds like a giant net, flooding the highlands and leaving the Regtsniktland dry as bone… at least, that’s what most scholars said. I honestly don’t know to be sure, but I’ll take whatever explanation I can get.”

Teagan and Hannah continued on for some time, mostly in silence. Hannah didn’t seem like the talkative sort, only responding when Teagan first posed questions, and Teagan was still too disoriented, tired, and worried to try and converse. She idly kicked at rocks as she and her newfound companion descended down the last bits of the mountainside until they reached the steppe, blanketed with soft stalks of knee-high grass. When the terrain leveled out, the going got a bit easier, and Teagan was able to regain her composure and collectedness under the easier conditions of travel. After passing through just over half of the grassy plain, Hannah tapped Teagan on the shoulder.

“Could we stop for a bit? I haven’t eaten all day. I’m quite famished, but I don’t have anything I could eat on the go.”

“Certainly!” Teagan responded jovially, being quite hungry herself, “Travel is much easier on a full stomach.”

Teagan found a flat area on the ground, pushed the grass in the area down, and sat crosslegged. Hannah followed suit, rifled through her pack, and withdrew a loaf of bread. Teagan reached in her backpack to grab a hardtack biscuit, but wound up grabbing only a handful of powdery lumps and crumbs. Teagan peered inside her backpack and saw that nearly all of the hardtack was ground to a paste, most likely crushed when she tumbled down the mountainside. It was effectively inedible, being composed moreso of grime and stray worn bits of leather than of actual pieces of the biscuit. Teagan meekly set her backpack aside, forcing an awkward smile and looking at Hannah until she was noticed.

“Is something the matter?” Hannah inquired, eyebrow raised in confusion.

“Well, uh, I wanted to ask you a question. Nothing much, it’s just something about, er, tomkins…” Teagan muttered, not sure how her question would be received. Hannah waited for her to follow the statement up, eyes half-lidded in quickly growing exasperation.

“Did you, uh, ever eat tomkins in your village? I’ve heard it’s something people do in places.” Teagan lied, wringing her hands nervously.

“Well… yes. The tomkins made an intense effort of hunting down as many creatures as they could find, both to deny us food and to make the land more suited to their own habitation. One must have meat of some kind - even the peasantry would occasionally poach rabbits and waterfowl in days gone by - and nowadays, tomkins are the most plentiful quarry. The Regtsniktland is desolate, and one cannot spare the conscience to the detriment of the body should they survive. Of course, if you’re asking this because you think I’d harm your friend, worry not. It is up to you to decide what you do with the small folk. Do not expect me to abstain from doing what I must on her account, however.”

“That’s not quite actually the reason I ask.” Teagan said, emboldened by the knowledge that Hannah felt similarly to her on the matter, “I’d like to perhaps propose a barter, should bread alone not be to your liking.”

Teagan slipped her box away from her belt, put it between herself and Hannah, and popped it open. Hannah showed little visible reaction at the sight of the huddled tomkins within, only staring with the same half-lidded gaze for a few seconds before looking back to Teagan.

“I suppose I could spare a hunk of bread in exchange for three or four of them.” Hannah indifferently posited.

Teagan reached her hand into the box, raising a chorus of little shouts of panic. She was ready to withdraw a handful of the tomkins inside when she heard an all to familiar voice call her name in a similarly familiar pleading tone. She was filled with delight to see Sihil standing woozily in the pocket on her backpack. Teagan, as gently as she could manage, placed the disconcerted girl on her hand and raised her to eye level.

“Sihil!” Teagan exclaimed, overjoyed to see that Sihil lived. 

“Teagan… ” Sihil meekly muttered, drowsy and characteristically sad, “amicar…  save…”

Sihil pointed weakly at the box, wherein the frightened tomkins were still left exposed. Some of them were trying to boost each other out of its confines, prompting Teagan to rap the edge of the box with her knuckles and send them tumbling back down. Teagan knew that she wanted to spare the tomkins inside, or at least some of them, but wasn’t too keen on the idea. She needed to eat, and if she needed to give a few of them to Hannah to make that happen, so be it. On the other hand, she wanted Sihil to be happy, and surely this would further her dejectedness. Making careful note of the tomkins inside the box, Teagan looked at Sihil and held up a finger.

“Save one.” she said, knowing that Sihil would understand her.

~

Sihil felt her heart flutter as Teagan lowered her into the box, which was now far more crowded than it had been when Sihil blacked out. As she dropped inside, many of the strangers gathered around here, asking questions, barking accusations, begging for aid. Sihil, overwhelmed and afraid, stumbled her way over to Aaliyah. When she made it to the crippled soldier, Sihil fell to her knees. The soldier drew her in for a quiet, loose embrace before looking her in the eyes.

“Aaliyah! Aaliyah, what happened to me?” Sihil quietly asked.

“You slammed into the wall, dear. You fell entirely unconscious… the injury looked terrible, but Hassan and I were unable to do anything to aid you. Only seconds after, the giantess started dropping more people in here. From what they say, they’re members of a scholastic commune isolated up here in the Stele mountains. Even after it seemed as if she was done, we were interrupted again when this prison once again started jarring everyone about, this time even more forcefully than before. We think the giantess fell down the mountainside… but in any case, the giantess somehow attracted another of their kind. She withdrew you from the box, and, I swear on the First Caliph, the two of them treated your wound. They didn’t return you here after they were done with you, so I can’t tell you any more.”

Sihil was amazed, mortified, and guilty. Why did the giantess continue to spare and even aid her while affording nothing but death to almost any other who crossed her path? Sihil had little time to ponder her unique predicament as a tall man, eyes wide with fear, seized her by the shoulders and tore her from Aaliyah’s grasp. Sihil shrieked in surprise and pain as the man roughly spun her around and restrained her.

 “What did she say to you?!” he bellowed.

 “Leave her alone! She’s already scared enough as it is!” Aaliyah shouted at the man, throwing her waterskin at him. He ignored her entirely, focusing purely on Sihil.

 “What did she say, girl! What’s going to happen!” he screamed, spittle flying from his mouth.

 “She… she said that I can… that I can rescue one of you.” Sihil tearfully whimpered, dropping back to her knees as the man released her shoulders in shock.

An eerie silence hung in the air for a meager second before someone in the crowd wailed. With that one spark, almost everyone in the box either fell into a panic or began to cry. Sihil screamed again as she tried in vain to wrestle herself away from supplicants begging to be spared, some more threateningly than others. Sihil was thrown suddenly back as someone pushed at her, sending her crashing into the tall man who had just berated her.

“Save my child! Please! Please! Celia! Celia, where are you!” he shouted, scanning the roiling crowd.

Sihil tried dashing away from him, to which he responded by punching her in the back, knocking her down onto the ground. Sihil tried scrambling away, but the man pinned her down with a knee, his expression utterly crazed. His full weight was pinned atop her, and others took advantage of her situation to run to her side, still begging incomprehensibly. Sihil was sure that her bones would start to snap under the man’s weight when she heard Hassan bark something out over the crowd.

“Get the fuck off of her right now!” he growled, advancing on the tall man. Sihil was relieved and grateful as the man stood up, taking his knee off of her back, and threw himself at Hassan. There was a single, loud cracking noise as Hassan threw a punch at the man’s jaw, leaning his entire body into the blow. The man dropped to the floor bellowing in rage and agony, his jawbone clearly fractured. Hassan helped Sihil to her feet and guided her back to Aaliyah.

“Sihil.” Hassan began, his gruff voice almost concealing the fear he felt, “I’m going to ask a great favor from you. Please, save Aaliyah. I don’t know what ‘save’ means in this context, but I think whatever it may entail, it’s a better fate than what would await us otherwise. I’m not going to demand it, but please, just consider it. She has been a good friend to you.”

Sihil nodded. Just as Hassan concluded, however, Sihil saw the man he had just punched slinking up behind him, his mangled face contorted further with rage.

“Hassan, behind you!” she cried out, hoping to alert him before the man struck.

She was too late, however. Hassan turned just in time for the man to kick him in the side of the head, knocking him unconscious. Aaliyah shouted for help, but nobody proffered any aid as the man grabbed Sihil by the throat and started strangling her. Some even egged the man on. She kicked and struggled, but her resistance was feeble, and she felt her head pounding with pain as her heart slammed furiously in her chest.

“You lishle whore! You arensh gonna shave your friend here and leave the resht of us to die! Bitsch! I’ll kill you! I’ll k-”

The man was cut off as Teagan pinched his head between her pointer finger and thumb, causing him to scream as she roughly handled his broken jaw. Sihil scrambled back to Aaliyah and watched as Teagan handed him off to the stranger giantess, who withdrew a knife and methodically began carving into him. He jarringly screeched as she sawed through his left arm. The screeching turned into a pained choking noise as she finished cutting off the left arm and started hacking at the right. It was only after she had cut both the man’s arms off and left him a murmuring, half-conscious double amputee that she finally started sawing at the man’s neck, slitting his throat and letting the blood spurt across her massive hand. Sihil felt nauseous at the sight, and heard others in the box retching similarly. Teagan seemed to be watching as well, as it was only after the stranger giantess had finished decapitating the man that she reached once more into the box, gently extricating Sihil. Sihil held tightly to Teagan’s hand as she was raised up to the giantess’ eyes. Sihil, working up her courage, raised a hand, holding two fingers up. She wanted to save Aaliyah and Hassan both, and hoped that the giantess was feeling magnanimous enough to grant her request. The giantess, hesitating only a few seconds, gave a relaxed shrug before nodding and flashing two of her own fingers back at Sihil. Sihil excitedly pointed back down at Aaliyah and Hassan, to which Teagan nodded. With little warning, Teagan plucked the two tomkin soldiers out of the box and sat them on the palm of her hand alongside Sihil. She smiled at the three of them before depositing them on the ground. Sihil watched, horrified, as the giantess then reached into the box with both of her hands, withdrawing nearly seven or eight struggling, crying people. The stranger giantess cupped her own hands and allowed Teagan to shake three people into them. Sihil turned away as the stranger giantess replicated the process she had done to the tall man, ruthlessly sawing the people’s arms off. They screamed, pled, and cried as usual, but Sihil somehow felt that their cries were even stronger than those of Teagan’s victims. The stranger giantess cut off the arms of all her captives before starting on any of their necks, leaving them to bleed and suffer as they stared death in the face. Even Teagan seemed disconcerted at this, though far less so than anyone else. The stranger giantess, only after reducing her captives to headless torsoes and legs, began to take small, delicate bites, ripping through flesh and bone alike as she devoured the bodies. Sihil nearly fainted as the stranger giantess sucked the flesh from a man’s leg, tossing the bloody bone aside once she had finished. Hassan jumped to her side and turned her away from the brutal, gory spectacle, clearly shaken himself.

~

“Uh… Hannah?” Teagan asked, getting the woman’s attention, “I have to say… I’m a bit intimidated with how you, er, prepared those tomkins.”

Hannah shrugged.

“The arms are too bony for me. Biting into them is a bit nasty. As for the heads... I can barely stomach them raw as I already do. I think adding the viscera in their skulls to the mix wouldn’t improve the matter.”

“Well, what about swallowing them whole?” Teagan asked, lifting a tomkin from her hand up. The young man screamed helplessly as Teagan dropped him on her outstretched tongue, retracted him into her mouth, and gulped him down. Teagan took little time to savor him, instead opting to show an example, but she still felt a slight perverse pleasure as she felt hints of movement in her belly. Hannah, for the first time since they sat down, showed genuine surprise or interest in her expression.

“I thought they can kill you if they aren’t dead before you eat them! Surely they can damage your internals before they themselves perish.” she remarked, her eyes affixed on the bulge traveling down Teagan’s throat.

“Haha, yes, yes, I’ve heard the story myself. It’s a misnomer. I’ve been regularly eating them whole for… ugh, I’ve lost track of time… at least a few months now, I think, and for years before, I ate them occasionally. It’s never done me any harm yet. Want another one to try it out?”

Hannah shrugged.

“If you’re offering, I’ll accept.” she replied.

Teagan scanned the four tomkins left in her hand. They cowered and wept as her gaze raked across them, but she ignored their frightened mewling, looking for the smallest among their number. Swallowing tomkins whole was difficult at first, and the urge to chew was insurmountable with a larger one. Teagan decided on a little brown-haired girl, appearing as if she would be no more than 11 years old were she human. Teagan dropped the girl in Hannah’s outstretched hand and watched. The girl wept and barely struggled as Hannah slowly, hesitatingly drew her in. She sucked the girl in through her lips, tucking her in her cheek. Teagan saw Hannah’s cheek shift slightly with the girl’s struggles, and suppressed her guilt as deeply as she could. Hannah tried swallowing, but the bulge in her cheek remained, muffled wailing now faintly audible from it. Hannah pushed the girl around with her tongue, forcing her as deep as she could towards the back of her mouth before attempting to swallow again. Hannah’s throat tightened as the girl was slowly dragged down it, forced inextricably downwards towards her death. Teagan gave an approving thumbs up as the girl’s screams faded away, and a tiny bump ran down Hannah’s neck, disappearing below her collarbones. Hannah still seemed a bit surprised, and put a hand to her stomach after a few more seconds had passed.

“I… I think I can feel her down there, wriggling… it’s not an entirely unpleasant sensation.” she slowly said, the experience clearly novel to her, “Huh. That was much easier than my method. Thank you, Teagan… you truly are full of surprises.”

Teagan smiled sheepishly. No matter how many mental gymnastics she tried to throw herself through to deny it, she had just witnessed a girl die because of her, and now she was being complimented because of it. Teagan yelped as one of the tomkins hurled themselves off of her palm, hitting the ground below and taking off almost immediately. Not ready to try and catch her, Teagan threw the rest of her tomkins forcefully back into her box, leapt at the fleeing tomkin, and smashed her under a tight fist. She scraped the gooey remains off onto the dirt, but felt a gut-wrenching sickness tighten her heart as she did so. What was she? Did she delight in the torture of these tiny people, or did she hate herself for it?

~

Firkon, although driven to find the giantess, was sad to leave Q’thuman behind. The city was stunning, far larger and formidable than all but the grandest of Orestian strongholds. The people were welcoming, the landscape beautiful, and all his men were able to rest in a true bed, not the itchy cots they were so accustomed to. Volkhard seemed to sense his pining and gave him a reassuring smile.

“Q’thuman will await your return. Your generosity and heroism have not gone unnoticed by its people. This ‘war’ will blow over quite quickly once the Selcenians reach the walls. It’s happened before with the Phocari and the Telaphonoi - an army approaches, threats are made, a siege started - but it always ends with the attackers leaving, morale low and food lower. Grain stores in the city are plentiful enough to survive the longest of sieges, and the Selcenians know this well.”

Firkon nodded.

“If this is true, then I look forward to seeing your grand city once more. I also know, however, that the Selcenian Empire truly is an empire… to compare it to a city-state like Telaphonis or a loose confederacy of towns and trading posts like Phocarus is to vastly underestimate its capabilities. Even the Orestian territories are nearly incapable of fielding armies as large and well equipped as the Selcenian Empire’s.”

“You raise a good point, Firkon.” Volkhard replied, “This may be more than we have faced ever before. Of course, that should be of little concern to you, Orestian. The people of Q’thuman are the only ones who need stand against Selceus and his generals. As for us, our time and focus are better spent planning our own battle. I know that you have denied this in the past, but you need to face the facts, Firkon: our foe is cunning and intelligent. It won’t be easy to force her into a battle. We will need a plan that accounts for her own tricks, one that uses them against her if possible.”

Firkon looked ahead. The vast scrubland was harsh at first glance, but various watchtowers and towns dotted the horizon, demarcating oases and potential markets. The terrain offered the giantess little in the way of food, water, or cover, while affording Firkon and his men all that they needed for now. Everything seemed to be falling into place. He turned back to Volkhard, his normally steely eyes now cloudy and distant.

“If Laeron’s estimations are correct, the giantess is likely either in the Stele mountains or the grasslands abutting them. That gives us perhaps a day or two before we’re likely to encounter her, assuming she travels at the same rate. We have plenty of time to plan for anything she could do, as long as we’re able to pick the battlefield…”

Volkhard chuckled, his heavy coat snapping as a sudden breeze bore down on the hot plain.

“That is wherein one of our many problems reside, Firkon. I heavily suggest you get to thinking about a solution.”