One of the copper-skinned giant youths stepped out of a cluster of mountains to an open tract, scanning the surroundings. “They said there were estates southwest, where the humans are sent on their lonesome to gather herbs. That should be a good place.” She adjusted the bandeau and the rope around her waistline, threw the long braid behind her, and took a sip of water from her flask.

“Hey, where the hell are my friends?” The shout came from Henry who revealed himself from behind some nearby trees. “I saw someone like you take my friends. Show me where they are.”

“Huh, what’s a human doing out here on his own, and naked?” She kept those words as a low mutter to herself. “Whatever, it’s a free catch.” She cleared her throat and said, in a kind voice, “I think I know where your friends are, I’ll show you.” The girl advanced on him. Henry was, understandably, viewed as nothing to be threatened by, so she felt no urgency to quickly step on and subdue him. Coming close, she crouched down to grab him.

Henry summoned the art of the fighter and elbowed the middle of her palm. With a shriek, she recoiled as if having touched fire. Henry jumped up and drove an upwards kick up the bottom of her chin, clinking her teeth together.

“Ouch!” She fell on her ass with the look of having tasted something disgusting. She kicked her foot out to hit Henry, but he dodged and sprinted off. “You’re gonna pay for that!” The girl got up and gave chase. Henry didn’t believe she’d be so fast, her stomping steps narrowly trailing behind him. With a glance back, he’d see a row of toes slamming down a yard or so behind, falling back, then the next foot appearing, able to feel the wind and dust expelled from her steps. The toes would curl upon landing, an attempt to clasp him tight should he be trapped thereunder.

Henry made a sharp turn left. The giant, not so dexterous, had to let her momentum take her for another couple of steps, puffing in annoyance. “You’re gonna regret it when I catch you.”

Henry rounded a cliff, and when the giant did so as well, she found Henry hiding behind another giant’s ankle. Velvet Rowfield, hands on her hips, met the girl with a cold stare.

“Um, hello, ma’am, I—”

Velvet’s hand flied up in half slap and half grab as she smacked a grip onto the girl’s ear. “So the Rhinos are using little thugs like you?” Velvet yanked the girl so hard she lost balance, putting her front first to the ground. Velvet put a knee on her back and grabbed her braid. “It’s not so fun when someone bigger comes along, is it?”

“I’m sorry!” she said. Her weakened, cry-ready face along with how Velvet held her reminded Henry of how, underneath the size, these girls were no older than fifteen.

“I don’t care about your sorries,” Velvet said, her grip iron-hard. “Tell me where the Charmer is.”

“She’ll punish me if I say, ma’am.”

“She won’t be punishing anyone when I’m done with her. The only one who can punish you now is me, and I am going to punish you. But you can make it better for yourself by helping me. If you'd like, I can start by breaking the bones in your fingers and toes.”

“No, please!”

“Where is she?”

“Ok, ok! She’s in those mountains. The human saw me come out of them. There’s a bunch of mountains close together that way. There’s a lot of corridors in it, like a maze. Whichever corridor has a mark in the rock somewhere, like a horn, is the right path.”

“Hmm. Is the Charmer there now?”

“I think she left for somewhere else.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know, I swear!”

“Which goddamn way is she returning from?”

“I don’t think she walks. I never see her travel somewhere, but she goes places.”

Velvet raised her eyes to the distance. “Hmm, probably teleportation. How long until she returns?”

“She never goes away for more than four days.”

“Four days…” Velvet got up. The girl tried to follow, but Velvet put a foot on her back. “Stay down.” Velvet reached for a side compartment in her backpack and pulled out a pouch. In it she scooped up something powdery which, with a wave of her hand, flowed as one tenuous unit around her fingers. With the swirling matter around her fingers, she brought her hand down to the girl’s ankles. None would have guessed the stuff was once a powder, as it solidified into blue shackles fettering her ankles together. Velvet created another pair of shackles for her wrists, linking them to the ankles. She could move with relative freedom, but they were still constraints in the end. She helped the girl stand, who could not take long strides nor extend her arms fully.

“You will head into the nearest town and find yourself some royal guards. They have the magic to break these shackles.”

The solution granted the girl no respite. “Royal guards?”

“Oh yes, darling. Did you think you wouldn’t end up in trouble?” Velvet flaunted the pouch full of the powder before putting it in the rucksack. “They only provide licensed bounty hunters with these. You either go to them to get these shackles off and repent your crimes, or evade them and live with these chains for the rest of your life. Also, whoever sees you with these chains will know you’re a criminal, so it’ll be best to try and get them off as soon as possible.” Velvet shoved her. “Away with you.”

The girl ended up before Henry, who she stood over with a poisonous glare. “I hate you.” Her toes curled; she couldn’t stomach leaving without payback. Her foot rose what distance the fetters allowed, hovering over Henry. Though the fear from Velvet still hung over her, so all she did was wrinkle her foot to sprinkle little pebbles along fragments of branches and leaves off on him. Her slender toes went yellow from pressure, trying to scrape every bit of debris off.

Henry was far from fussing over his hygiene after the last couple of days, giving her a jolly look. “Have fun with your chains.” Her foot fell beside him, but Henry didn’t budge.

“I said away with you.” Velvet gave her another shove, and the girl was off, magical chains clinking.

“It’s okay for her to just wander off like that?” Henry said. “Surely there’s some other way around those shackles?”

“It’s possible with immense magical power, but she probably won’t think that far. She’s just a kid. Also, she has no bounty on her. I don’t get paid for her, and I have to be efficient when I’m out for bounties. I can’t spend too much time on things that aren’t my bounty, even if it means turning away from an injustice. If I hadn’t needed information on the Charmer, I wouldn’t have bothered catching her.”

“I guess I’m lucky I don’t cost you too much of your time.”

“Exactly.” Velvet picked him up and put him in her chest pocket. They followed the direction the girl had pointed towards, and the conspicuous cluster of mountains were surely those she’d spoken of. They saw one of the corridors from afar, but Velvet made camp in a lowland out of its sight. “We don’t march in there now. The girl seemed too frank and scared to lie. In four days, we’ll know the Charmer is back. Going in now into the midst of it all and waiting seems worse. I don’t know how deep their network is, but if I waltz in there and wait, I doubt any of them would have the power to challenge me, but they could contact the Charmer and warn her from returning. And I don’t have the resources and manpower to play babysitter and detain all of them. So we go in on the fourth day, I’ll overpower and detain the Charmer.”

“You’re confident. I wish I’ll have power like that someday.”

She put him down. “Need the obvious be said? You likely won’t have, since you’re human.”

“Aren’t there humans who can challenge giants?”

“Massive exceptions. Also, the giants keep a close watch on them. Most of the humans who have the power to beat a giant, one on one, are usually hired by the kingdom. Some of them are tasked to fight the Rhinos. And they’re not allowed to be in Humius, can’t let that kind of power sit and fester with the humans. So if you ever found yourself so powerful, you wouldn’t be allowed to keep it to yourself. You’d have to take a respectable position within the kingdom, which isn’t bad at all, or be branded an outlaw in need of being dealt with.”

“Hmm.”

Velvet took her backpack off. “Your future looks bright, sixteen years old with decent progress throug your art. It’s far from a bad thing to work for the kingdom, if you ever get there.”

“I just feel so helpless when fighting a giant. You… you’re so big. Maybe you can give me your perspective.”

Velvet shrugged. “I haven’t really fought humans. Even then, fighting humans isn’t some particular category of its own. There are no secrets giants have. The girl who just chased you, she didn’t have any deep thought process or strategy behind her approach to deal with you.” Velvet let her left foot stand on its heel, then slapped it down. “Naturally, she just tried to stomp you, because you’re tiny and on the ground.”

“Maybe we could spar,” Henry said. “You could share some insights of the experience. I could learn something.”

Velvet half-smiled. “Spar?” She tapped the ball of her foot along the ground. “You mean me trying to trample you, and you trying to fight back?”

“Hey, sometimes I do land successful blows. You could tell me what you find annoying about what I do, maybe I can develop some fruitful strategies.”

“Some other time. I need to focus on what’s at hand here.”

“It’s gonna be a long wait, could kill some time. And it won’t be too tiring for you, so it won’t burn through your rations.”

Velvet gave a small laugh. “What insistence. It almost feels to me like you want to get stepped on.”

“No, of course not.” Henry blushed.

Velvet sat down against her backpack. “I’ve mostly been around giants my life, so I’m not used to the male body. That manhood looks pretty funny, like a little cord hanging from the legs.”

Henry had forgotten his nakedness since Ada had stripped him long ago, but he hoped it would go unmentioned. “Yeah, sorry. It’s unseemly to be like this.”

“Don’t be. But I wonder, when it stiffens up, is it due to fear? I would think so, it was stiff when that girl chased you, and when she threatened to stomp you. Even when I first met you, it pointed up.”

“Um…” Henry turned away from her. “It’s complicated.”