Chapter 12

Janna knew she was being stupid, reckless and probably naive. But when all the glass had been gathered up, she had decided to take the next step in introducing her tiny classmates to the equally tiny people's society. She had made no precautions, spread no safety net, she would simply put the three into Laura's village to see what would happen. Another attack on them, similar to that on Steve, was not what she feared. That could be easily thwarted by her. What she feared was that all the ugly truths came to light.

Still, she was here now, in front of Lauraville, Steve, Christina and even Valerie on the palm of her hand. This was about giving them something to do, distracting them, rebuilding a healthy relationship with them. She could have just put them back on the table and let them rot in their now dark and boring ship without electricity. But she did not want that. She wanted her class mates to be happy and she desperately wanted Steve and Christina to help her restart her study of the alien species.

Without the electronic equipment in the tiny space ship things would be difficult, she knew. Her hope was that at some point Valerie would be able to fix it. She would have to have some knowledge of how to fix the wiring to get things working again, surely. But for that to happen Janna first needed to regain, or rather build, a certain level of trust. Either that, or she could just make the tiny pilot do it, which seemed the immoral yet undeniable plan B.

Black smoke was rising from one of the new buildings that the tiny villagers had constructed. The giantess Nagash was standing next to it, looking up at her with unhidden discomfort.

Janna greeted her with a warm smile: "Hello, Nagash. How are things...?"

It was terribly awkward.

"In order." Was the short and sceptical response.

"Is this a bakery?" Janna asked hinting at the new building with the smoke.

"A smithy." Answered Nagash. "Tools need repair."

"Oh!" Janna cheered happily. "That is interesting. I have three friends of mine here on the palm of my hand, they do not speak your tongue but I would love for them to see your village."

Nagash clearly did not understand what she meant.

"Look." Janna started again, briskly. "I will put my friends into your village. Every thing will be nice, no one is to harm them and they will witness neither killing nor cruelty. Understood?"

Nagash nodded insecurely and Janna proceeded to put Steve, Christina and Valerie down in front of her. The three were still awfully quiet, even Steve's enthusiasm seemed dampened. Upon seeing Nagash, with her wild, brown mane, dirty skin and skimpy clothing, they froze in fear. She was the first, living, indigenous giantess that they had ever seen.

"It's fine." Janna reassured them from above whilst protectively crouching over them. "She is harmless. She helps the villagers to build houses and they give her food in return."

The three still stood there, eyeing Nagash suspiciously but also not making any effort to explore the village on their own. Meanwhile, locals gathered, anxiously gawking at the newcomers in their strange, grey-orange overalls. This was not working to Janna's satisfaction.

"Tiny people!" She addressed the village in the local tongue. "My friends have arrived. Give them some of your delicious food as a welcome! Let them receive your hospitality to the utmost extend!"

That put Nagash to action. Striding energetically towards the center of the village, she gestured wildly with her arms, barking orders. Maybe some smoked ham would brake the ice. The villagers picked up their work again, after that. No one wanted to be caught making lazy.

Janna noticed activity in the smithy in front of her as well and she lowered down to peer inside beneath the roof. The building was made from wood, entirely, except for the fireplace and chimney which seemed to have been made from clay and the occasional field stone. Inside, she could see three figures at work on some weird apparatus. No metal was being worked at, at the time.

"Isn't it unwise to build a smithy from wood?", She asked into the building, "It could catch fire, couldn't it?"

A stout man in a leather apron ran out to greet her, bowing his bold head, deeply, shiny from sweat.

"This is the smithy, if it please the goddess!" He said after standing upright again. "And it is true that wood can catch fire, which is why we have constructed the vital parts from clay that does not burn, if it please the goddess!"

He scratched his backside briefly before adding, fearfully: "If it does not please the goddess, I humbly ask you let my two apprentices out the building before you crush it. They are good lads, the lack of sufficient good stone is no fault of theirs!"

"Your smithy is safe, tiny man." Janna laughed in response and the man seemed to let out a sigh of relief.

"The work will be starting shortly, goddess!" He went on. "My apprentices are constructing a bellow, then I only needs find an anvil and I might actually do some good things here. If I get some steel, that is. We have no trade, you see..."

He cleared his throat so noisily that even Janna could hear it and spat on the ground.

"I will get you some." Janna replied with a friendly smile. "An anvil is that iron thing you beat on with a hammer, right?"

"You say that true! If you gave me steel, that would be most kind of you, goddess!" The smith exclaimed, surprised but also a bit suspicious.

He was clearly not expecting any help from Janna, of all people. That gave her a new idea.

"Steve." She began, determinedly and in English. "Why don't you check out the smithy and see about their metal working skills. Christina, I think you should take a look at their domestic animals. They look just like on earth, but I am simply too big to tell."

The two looked up at her without saying a word or making a move.

"Valerie," Janna concluded, "you should try and get a layman's perspective on their society. Your point of view should matter as well, for the work we do."

Still, no one was moving and so Janna rose to her feet. She saw that Nagash was approaching, four tiny people in tow carrying all manner of hastily scrambled food items.

"No one will harm my friends." Janna told her once more in the local tongue. "And no cruel stuff, while I'm gone. I will step on all of you if you disobey. I will return shortly."

By the time she got back from the ship, the tissue with glass shards and steel items in her hand, Steve, Valerie and Christina had moved. She saw Valerie, lingering around, gawking at things and avoiding the stares of the locals and Christina, fighting with a piglet trying to get it to hold still.

When she crouched in front of the smithy, the tiny, bold smith came running out again.

"Here is a little to get you started with." Janna addressed him and laid out the paper towel in front of her. "There's not much steel, but I will get you more when I can."

"Aye, goddess, you are most kind." He bowed once more and his boldness flashed in the sunlight. "But, pray tell me, what is that other stuff that I am seeing?"

"It's glass." Janna shrugged apologetically. "See if you can use some of it, maybe as spear tips? If it is useless just..."

"No, no!" The smith interrupted her, lifting a tiny glass shard to the light, marvelling at it.

That he had taken the liberty to interrupt her, startled Janna for a moment. He seemed to notice that too and he shrieked and began a grovelling apology to which Janna only raised her hand.

"If you can make use of it, you can keep it. It is yours." She told him, calmingly.

He bowed his head again and continued marvelling at the glass. He seemed so intoxicated by it that he eventually took it to his own arm and cut himself. Then he shrieked again and Janna could see his hand turn red with blood.

"You tiny, pig-headed fool!" Nagash growled suddenly and came stomping at him just as Steve was exiting the smith's work shop, chewing on a hard sausage.

Seeing him, the tiny giantess stopped in her tracks, fearfully looking over at Janna.

"The smith hurt himself on the glass!" Janna addressed the puzzled look on Steve's face.

"Yeah, man!" He answered, scolding. "That shit is sharp, like, horribly."

He came jogging over and crammed for something in the breast pocket of his uniform. Janna had entirely forgotten about the first-aid kit that was standard in all the explorer's uniforms.

"Calm down, man." Steve told the smith who seemed to be in a horrible scare of Nagash.

Eventually, though, the bold man allowed Steve to treat his wounds and the college boy had him patched up in no time and even gave him something mild for the pain.

"He will make you a hunting knife, he says." Janna translated for Steve after the smith had stopped incredulously staring at his bandages and showering Steve with thanks.

"Woa, cool!" The boy exclaimed and scrambled to repeat the words for 'thank you' in the local tongue.

It came out well enough and the two patted each others shoulders before dividing the metal on the tissue from the glass sharps and carrying it to the smithy.

When the smith lifted the chain mail, he laughed throatily: "Ha, seems this one has half it's owner still in it, heh!"

Steve replied in English, with an apologetic grin: "Yeah, dude, there's totally a dead guy in there."

Janna was happy to see her plan bear fruits. Wash away the awkwardness, put them to work on what they came here for, make them forget about the earlier unpleasantness. While she was thinking these things, Steve came running back out.

"Janna!" He called up at her. "I think we need a hotter fire to work on the metal but that wind-blowing-thing is not ready yet. I thought, uh, maybe you could create some wind for us?"

"Did the smith tell you that?" She asked him in response.

Surely he couldn't have learned the local tongue that quickly.

"We're kinda communicating with hands and feet!" He shrugged and grinningly scratched the back of his head. "Do you think you could blow on the flames for us?"

She brought her head down again, peering under the roof with one eye to see were the fire was. Then she blew, softly at first but gradually building up. Dust and debris kicked up from the mighty gust of wind she created. The tiny smith's apprentices' hair thrashed around, as did the heavy leather apron of their bold master. Eventually, the flames were blown out but the wood turned white with heat. When Janna ceased blowing, the fire restarted, furiously crackling and roaring up the chimney.

She blew one last time, so hard that one of the apprentices lost his footing and everyone was shielding their eyes until a few wooden boards from the roof of the smithy flew off. The fire's flames went so high now, that they kicked out of the chimney every now and then.

"Sorry about the roof." Janna chuckled.

Had she blown to the extent that she capable off, she could have toppled the entire structure and reduced it to a pile of rubble.

"That's fine, I think." Steve said, scratching his head again while he watched the smith and his lackeys feed more wood to the flames.

"Christina, Valerie, come here, please." Janna called out.

Steve seemed to have a great experience. She wanted to see if it worked on the other two as well. That did not seem to be the case, however, because Christina was striding furiously towards her, shaking her head. Valerie came too, still ambling stiffly and awkwardly in between the huts and houses.

"So." Janna began when all three were in front of her. "What do you guys think?"

They exchanged glances.

"Well, uh, they can work iron, obviously, and they have the knowledge to make simple devices." Steve began with a shrug, when no one else would. "They use what they can pull out of land around here, I guess. I'd say they are an intelligent people, going through the same kind of development as ours. Assuming they are developing as fast as we have, I'd say their species is somewhere between one and one point five thousand years younger than ours."

"Wow, that's quite a good observation. You follow that hypothesis." Janna said praisingly and Steve nodded.

"Yeah, fucking great observation, Steve!" Christina scoffed at him, inexplicably furious. "How about the fucking observation that they are humans?! Yeah, that's right, they are fucking humans!"

"How do you know that to a degree of scientific certainty?" Janna asked. "Have you sequenced their genome yet?"

"No!" Christina's fury now directed at Janna. "I don't have to. Plants and animals on this planet are textbook earth-stuff. Everything here is!"

"You never picked up a textbook." Steve laughed at her. "Which is why you had to agree to go on this mission, as did I and Laura and Janna too."

"I might have partied a little too hard," The tiny black tomboy defended herself, "but I know a fucking pig, and a cow, and a chicken, and a goose when I see one! That's elementary school biology!"

"Maybe they are different on the genetic, or molecular level." Janna suggested in an attempt to calm her down.

"Janna." Christina said frustrated. "An organism's body is the expression of it's genes! Sure, there might be slight differences if you sequenced it, but that you more likely be to mutations in reproduction!"

"Hmm." Janna made and pursed her lips. "So, you think everything here, came from earth, originally?"

"That would be my conclusion." Christina said, calmer now. "I don't know. Maybe a fucked up government experiment or what ever."

"That would mean we're not supposed to be here, right?" Steve rejoined the conversation.

"And it would mean that we have discovered absolutely nothing." Janna added with a hint of disappointment in her voice.

They all pondered that dark thought for a while.

"We should continue studying them and get to the bottom of this." Janna finally suggested after a while.

"What's the point?!" Christina argued. "There's nothing new here, at all!"

"We don't know that with certainty. Maybe things here just evolved the same as on earth?" Steve threw in, completely out of his element.

"That would suggest determinism in evolution." Christina shook her head. "That would rock the entire theory to the last fucking, fossilized bone."

"We must have a look at their genes." Janna reasoned which sent Christina into another furious outburst.

"Yeah, right!" She spat. "Thankfully, you guys didn't cut off our energy supply, you gigantic shitlords!"

Janna let that slide as well deserved and turned to Valerie instead.

"Do you think you can fix that?" She asked the tiny, blonde pilot.

Valerie looked up at her in fear and helpless anger, but did not say a word.

"Val, come on, this is important. For all of us." Steve joined in and even Christina nodded.

"Maybe." Was the short and crisp reply.

"What do you think about this, anyway?" Janna inquired in an attempt to get a few more words out of her.

Janna already sensed a certain degree of trust when talking to Christina and Steve, but Valerie remained the hardest nut to crack. Surely, she had to notice that Janna wasn't killing people, but maybe the fearful looks that the villagers gave her hardened Valerie's position to the contrary. With everyone staring at her, though, the tiny pilot opened her mouth to speak in the end.

"I don't know." She began, insecurely. "I mean, even if this is a government thing...it's still kind of a big deal, right? Maybe we're not discoverers but whistle-blowers."

"I want to know that for certain." Janna proclaimed. "All this vagueness makes me sick."

Her stomach was actually aching, but not from sickness, she knew. It was hunger that pained her again. It was well past time to go and find some village. Maybe she would have to sleep outside tonight. The possibility that she had eaten, or rather cannibalized, humans all this time was slightly troubling too. Maybe she would change her diet back to only local produce, even though that way would take far more work to get her full. It would also not unlikely doom whoever's food she took.

That was a reality Janna had come to terms with long ago: Her survival meant the death of others.

"Alright." She said to Valerie. "Can I put you in the ship right away or do you want to hang around the village some more?"

It was the right thing to ask her if trust was to be established at all.

"That's okay. I can start now." Valerie called up at her, insecurely. "I don't understand any of this stuff the way you guys do. It will take a while though."

"Can I stay here?" Steve asked, enthusiastically. "I want to learn the local language. Human or not, their language is interesting and it beats sitting in the ship without video games."

"I'll help you." Christina fell in, quickly. "I've got nothing else to do, and I don't even understand the ship's control panels, let alone the wiring."

Janna chewed on her lip.

"I have to go, get food." She cautioned them. "And I don't feel comfortable leaving you here by yourself."

That was only half of the truth.

"Then stay here and eat their food." Steve argued. "They've got plenty, don't they?"

"Laura and I only come here to eat in the morning." Janna explained. "We can't take away too much from them, or they'll starve."

Steve looked around and shrugged: "They all look reasonably fed here. I'm sure you can ask them for an additional meal."

An additional meal would cause problems for the tiny village but maybe Janna could borrow some food now and give it back to them later.

"Nagash." She called in the local tongue and the tiny giantess came over as quickly as she could.

Valerie, Christina and Steve retreated away from her approaching form and towards Janna. Another small victory.

"What do you wish?" Nagash asked with a face that already knew she wouldn't like the answer.

"I need food, a whole meal, and maybe even more in the evening and Laura too." She said, studying the tiny giantess' reaction.

"Goddess..." Nagash began, painfully. "We are working at full capacity. If you take this food from us, we will not be able to provide it tomorrow. We are struggling with one meal per day, as it is. I was about to cut our own rations in half, we are running short on tools and the humans need clothing. I will select our most useless humans for you to eat, if you wish.”

Janna shook her head: "I will not eat villagers. I need food."

The tiny giantess looked helpless.

"I will make it up to you." Janna vowed. "Tools and clothing should be easy to get and I will bring new livestock for you, if I find it. I will go out tomorrow morning."

"You would do that, for us?" Nagash asked, her eyes full of mistrust.

She probably remembered how Laura and her had broken their promise about not killing people earlier when they had breakfast. Still, Janna did not like for her honesty on this to be called into question.

"Yes." She replied coldly. "But you will have to take my word for it. Serve me or I will take the food myself. Your choice. My friends wish to explore your village, and I will stay here to watch over them."

Too late she remembered, that safety for them was not her only concern. If Steve and Christina too learned the local tongue, they would almost inevitably hear about her and Laura's misdeeds.

"Bring food for the goddess! All of you! Now!" Nagash shouted into the village.

All work was dropped immediately and people scrambled on top of each other. From the barns they had erected to store most of the food, barrels and baskets were carried and carts were loaded and rolled over to were their goddess was crouching. Helpless, Janna watched the scene unfold, unable to stop it now.

She put her hand down besides Valerie to allow her to climb on, which she did with much less reluctance than before, and took her to the space ship. Climbing up with a tiny person in her hand was always a bit harder, but she managed well enough and arrived inside, finding Laura still soundly asleep. She looked cute and lovely, and Janna wished to lay beside her for a while. But there was no time for that now.

She looked down at Valerie in her hand. Had she really eaten humans? She tried to imagine putting Valerie into her mouth right now and gulping her down. There really was not much to it. Her stomach grumbled angrily over the lack of food. It would be easy. Just one bite and Valerie would be gone.

Janna had to blink a few times to banish these hunger-driven thoughts from her head before she put the blonde pilot down on the table. She wished her good luck and turned to leave the space ship when Valerie called after her.

"Wait!" She called. "What if Laura wakes up?"

That is your problem, Janna thought and pretended not to have heard. Laura wouldn't kill her, maybe fart on her again, or scare her. Most likely she would just ignore the tiny girl or not even look for her. That Valerie trusted Janna more than Laura was a good start though. Another small victory on this day laden with small victories and defeats.

When Janna came back to Lauraville, she found Christina and Steve nibbling at hard sausage, local fruit and bread, washing it down with broth from wooden bowls. The tiny villagers were around them, praising their food to them like merchants on a market and doing everything to make them happy. When Janna sat down in front of them, though, they all retreated to a safe distance and watched.

She felt the need to express her disgruntlement over this to her classmates.

"I really don't know why they run away from me." She lied convincingly. "I never do anything to them."

"Well, that's because you are as tall as a skyscraper." Steve said happily with a mouth full of food. "And they have never seen a skyscraper. Man this food is great, it's like...totally...real!"

"That's because it is real, silly." Janna raised an eyebrow at him and smirked.

"No!" He laughed in response. "I mean, like, you can really taste the oven and the fire in this bread."

"So, Steve's bread tastes like fire." Janna smiled at Christina. "Does that ham taste sufficiently like smoke?"

"It does, actually!" Christina chuckled. "It tastes better than anything I have eaten before. Makes you wonder what we do to our food on earth."

On earth, food production had become rather clinical. No germs, bacteria or dirt had a chance to get within a mile of any food product. Treating food like medicine, however, seemingly had the effect of making it taste like medicine too. It was not that bad, but Janna agreed that the earthy produce on this planet was considerably better. Still, the taste of the tiny people in her mouth was her favourite. Another thought she banished as quickly as she could.

Instead, she took a cart of cured meat and poured it into her mouth. It was despairingly little. Seeing her tiny friends, which she considered them now, with mouths full of food, stuffing their faces with, to them, long sausages, loafs of bread, larger than their heads and drinking from bowls that filled both their tiny hands.

A wagon that would otherwise be pulled by a horse was about the size of a matchbox car to Janna. Delicate to her touch, she picket one up gingerly and poured it's content into her mouth. Then the next and another, until the contents of no less than five wagons was in there. It was hard to really get the full taste at her size too, adding to her displeasure. She actually considered throwing in the wagons themselves as well, just for the sake of their volume, but she knew that the villagers needed them. She chewed it all and swallowed in a matter of seconds.

"That's fucking scary." Steve observed, seemingly for hundredth time already, and Christina nodded.

Janna didn't care and proceeded to fill her mouth with turnips. The taste was bitter, raw and dirty, but food was food. Bread, carrots, beets, some baskets of mushrooms, her mouth turned it all into mush. The cooked fruit paste that the villagers made was not half bad and reminded Janna of jam. Another cart of meat she mixed with bread and berries, producing a sweet, savoury taste that she liked.

She noticed that Christina and Steve had put their food down and were not sitting any more either.

"What's wrong?" She asked them after swallowing a basket of carrots.

"You're like a grinder." Christina replied. "Watching you is like watching a giant machine."

"I'm starving." Janna justified herself. "And their food is quite good."

"What do you eat when you can't eat here?" Steve followed up foolishly, forgetting how long they had fought over that question already.

"What I can find." Janna replied briskly and threw a meat cart into her mouth, meat and cart both, crunching it noisily in between her teeth.

"Back to work, you maggots!" Nagash called when the first cries for Laura erupted from the crowd. "You have been idle long enough for one day!"

Janna forced herself to slow her eating so not to upset the villagers and her friends. She was getting more hungry the more she ate, but she agreed that she should not use up so much food so quickly that it would crush their spirits or scare them. Once again, the feeling of saturation had to be enough, especially because she had to leave some food for Laura. There would be nowhere near enough food for dinner.

She wondered if, maybe, she had to eat people. Perhaps there was simply no other way. The crowd dispersed quickly while Nagash marched through, treating stragglers with gentle kicks from her foot.

"We should look at the giants' genetics too." Janna turned to Christina. "If they are related to us, theirs is quite a mutation. If they are not related, voilà, that's our intelligent life discovery right there."

"Mhmhm." Christina agreed, nodding. "I hope Val can get that wiring fixed, though. In the meantime, I'd like to get started on their language. Where is the local school?"

"I don't think they have one." Janna began, looking around if maybe one of the buildings had a bell tower or something like that.

"If my earlier observation about their state in civilization is true, there are no schools in villages." Steve lectured. "The smith's apprentices are kids, like eleven or twelve or so, so I am guessing that is correct. They might have schools in cities and maybe monasteries or temples teach the kids of those that are well off but the common folk simply don't get any school education. Look around, there is not a single piece of writing anywhere around."

"I've seen people with lists though, so they must have some form of literacy." Janna added. "And they have religion as well, so maybe there is some sort of scripture?"

"They're not monotheistic by any chance, are they?" Steve inquired enthusiastically.

Janna tried to remember the few instances she had come in touch with the local forms of spirituality.

"No." She said with a shrug. "There's some forms of animism, very prevalent here but also a cult that involves twelve gods I think, and like a thirteenth, evil one for all the bad stuff."

"Amazing!" Steve exclaimed. "I could write an entire book about that alone already!"

"Uh...the villagers of this village seem to have incorporated Laura and me right into their believe system though." Janna added with a cringe to try and show that she did not like that either. "They believe we are goddesses."

"Obviously." Christina finished with a derogatory laugh.

Janna let that slide too.

"So, if you want to learn their language you have to sit down with the locals." She told them.

"I don't know if this is the right time." Christina said, insecurely. "They seem rather busy and I have a hunch that giantess of theirs is being rather mean to them. She acts like she's their leader or something."

"That's because she is." Janna explained. "Look at her, she's so big, why should she take orders from the tiny folk?"

"But she's not going to hurt us, right?" Christina asked anxiously, stalking the athletic, long-legged giantess with her eyes.

"I told her I'd crush her if she did that." Janna replied confidently. "She believes me."

"You could do that?" The tiny tomboy asked perplexed.

Maybe for someone that small the proportions were a little hard to make out, Janna thought.

"Yes." She explained. "She's the size of a Barbie doll for me. You can crush a Barbie doll, right?"

"I guess." Christina replied. "What size are we to you then?"

Janna put a calming touch to her voice: "You guys are about three centimetres, that's a little more than an inch. Of course, I measured that with our measuring tape that has grown with us, so that's really more feely data."

The tiny black girl crouched down and seemed to grab for something on the ground. She held it out on the palm of her hand but Janna couldn't see what it was by any stretch of the imagination.

"You mean, I am as small to you as this bug is to me?" She asked incredulously and Janna nodded.

She had no idea how big the bug on Christina's hand really was, but she wanted to know where this was going. She learned when Christina flipped her hand over, searched for the fallen creature on the ground and stomped on it, twisting her foot a few times while giving Janna a challenging look.

So, that again. Janna had had just about enough of it.

"Yeah, I could crush you if I wanted to." She said, calmly but firmly. "I could crush anyone here and there's not a thing they can do about it. But you knew that before, so I really don't know why you keep bringing this up."

"I don't like it, that's all!" Christina pouted. "Nobody should have the power to squash other people like bugs!"

"I agree." Janna concurred reluctantly. "But I'm pretty happy it turned out this way. If I were small, like you, Laura and I would probably have been caught and sold by some lord or or eaten by bears or some shit. And this way I can keep you safe too."

She allowed herself to eat again, slowly and only taking the smallest baskets and boxes which mostly contained nuts, berries and wild fruit. It was simply not enough. Meanwhile, Steve had wandered off, back into the smithy where the bold man had started beating on steel a while ago.

-

The smith's work shop was running, at least. Maybe restoring the many broken tools would help up the production in the village. Once the construction of the buildings was done, there would be more free labour Nagash could put to the production of food too, but that would all take a while still. The way in which the titanic giantess called Janna had unmade their stocks of food was frightening. Nagash didn't expect Janna would follow up on her promise either and she tortured her brain about how to get more in the short run.

Around the village where the trees had been cut or trampled there were large patches of land with healthy, green grass on them. Where the giantesses walked, the earth was either poached up or compacted so densely that it would take forever for something to grow there. In any case, anything that dared spread it's seed there was snuffed out by the next gargantuan footstep that landed upon it. But the parts where Janna and Laura did not walk, those could be the solution if only Nagash had a large amount of livestock to breed from. It was too late in the year to plant anything, but animals bred at a comparatively steady rate.

She had cut everyone's rations in half even though she knew that was against Laura's directive, for it would reduce productivity after a while. Nagash didn't want to know what would happen when there would be no breakfast tomorrow. Half rations meant bad morale among the humans too and while Janna's strange 'friends' were in the village, Nagash could not even kill a man or two to put them back in line.

Dexter would have just led them all on another raid and everything would be fine. New tools, new clothes, more labour, food. Dexter would likely have known where to get an anvil for the smithy too. Right now, the bald, bearded man called Hammer was beating his steel on a relatively flat stone and cursed it with every swing.

Nagash did not know where refugees camped, or where populated villages could still be found. If she just walked in one direction for two, maybe three days, she'd surely happen upon something useful eventually. That would mean leaving Lauraville behind though, and that did not serve. With all the raiders dead, she did not trust anyone with the task of leading a nightly raid. Maybe that tiny thing called Dari, she would be able to, but Nagash was too worried of what else she was able to. There were also no horses for the humans to ride.

Horses were good, Nagash had heard someone say, because Laura and Janna ate them alive and whole and they were large creatures, but Laura did not allow them in the village for she feared the humans would use them to escape. They had a few pigs and cows left, a few sheep and goats, chickens and geese. Chickens and geese laid eggs and the villagers could make a half decent cheese from the milk of cow, goat and sheep. They had offered the milk for the goddesses to drink but they had refused. It simply wasn't enough.

Livestock was the solution, if only they had more of it. Or if Janna would just eat villagers for the time being, but with her tiny 'friends' around, the titaness was neither crushing nor eating anyone. She did even appear rather gentle all of a sudden. The humans in the otherworldly clothing had to be important somehow. Why, Nagash could not say and did not really care to learn either.

One of those tiny humans had black skin and funny, short hair. Nagash had never seen such a human but a villager had explained that those in the very far south of the world, where ever that was, had skin and hair like that. The other villagers seemed strangely opposed to the female, only on account of the colour of her skin. Nagash did not know why that was either, maybe the tiny, black thing tasted different.

She was pondering all this after she had absent-mindedly settled a dispute between two wood cutters over a saw made from the antlers of a stag. Both claimed the saw to be theirs and under normal circumstances she would have broken a few bones on both of them and not bothered with the rest of it. But now, with Janna forbidding her to do that, she had called other sawyers for witnesses and settled the dispute according to their account, with the loser, instead of her foot on top of him, receiving rights to the first iron saw that Hammer the smith would be able to repair.

She still sat there from where she had cast her judgement that had left the two sawyers both equally disgruntled and pleased when a young boy drove the remaining goats and sheep right past her, singing.

"Lord Mannelig, Lord Mannelig, why won't you marry me, for the plunder, that I lay before you?" He sang merrily. "Your answer may be yes, or your answer may be no, it shall be what you put your will to!"

He could only be six years old and had a high-pitched, innocent voice.

"Accept thy gifts I will, for I desire them much, so I tell thee my answer is yes!" He went on. "But my men say, your name is Bergatroll, and you are a creature of the Nameless!"

"Do you like my singing?" The boy asked her so suddenly that she flinched.

Her mouth quivered and she found herself unable to reply.

"Father says, I shouldn't sing when I work but I find it helps herd the sheep." He went on without irritation. "I'm the best shepherd in the village! I don't need dogs to herd the cattle, they listen to my voice and follow me. Look!"

He called for one goat by it's name and gave a whistle. Haltingly, and keeping a weary eye on Nagash, the animal came trotting over.

"See?" The boy cheered at her.

Nagash felt the sudden urge to eat him. He wasn't fat, rather scrawny if truth be told, but his flesh would be tender and sweet all the same. She didn't even have to kill him outright. She could make him look on, as she sucked the meat off his arms and legs before twisting off his head and crunching his torso in between her teeth.

She got that urge every once in a while. All giants got it. The urge to kill and cause pain.

"Very impressive." She told the boy with a smile and got to her feet.

Her, towering above him, finally put the fear into the tiny kid. He drove on, his meagre herd, hastily. Nagash stalked after them with a slow, soft steps. She could crush them all, if she wanted to. And she wanted to, a lot. None would miss the boy, save his parents, and if their grief was so much then Nagash would simply rejoin them with their kid. She'd sit on the father, slowly crushing him to jelly, whilst pushing the mother's head in between her legs.

But she wouldn't. Instead she turned to see Janna devouring yet another cart of food, not even saving the vehicle for the humans to use, instead crunching it noisily in between those giant, white teeth of hers. No killing, had been the command, and Nagash would do good to obey. She still remembered Janna on top of her, using her. Janna could kill her as easily as Nagash could kill a villager. Only, Nagash was itching to kill again.

The boy had made distance whilst she had stopped. It was probably best that she couldn't kill him, if he really was 'the best shepherd in the village. With Janna and her curious 'friends' occupied with eating food and studying villagers, Nagash turned for the forest.

If someone asked, she'd be checking on the hunters or go and try to find some game herself. That was not a lie entirely, only she intended her prey to have two legs, instead of four. Most hunters and trappers walked the forest alone to cover more ground. They died, sometimes, ripped open by a boar or bear, or falling to their death somewhere. Getting themselves under Janna's or Laura's uncaring feet seemed to be their number one cause of death though. But not today.

Somewhere in these woods, Nagash would find herself a hunter or huntress and show them what it meant to be smaller than her. Her heart bounced in her chest. She loved to hunt.

-

Thorsten’s ‘Fishermen’s End’ was the first in the row of longships. The other captains all had declined to take the Horasians on board. His own crew shared the outspoken hatred for the southerners, as did Thorsten himself, but the grief of a brother lost was something he sympathized with. The Horasians would go their own way, as soon as they beached at Andrafall, so he had been assured and that was well enough.

Of course, someone of Léon’s format did not travel alone. No less than eight Horasian sell-swords he had with him, wearing poofy, brown tabards over white shirts and matching knee-high britches, complete with high, white socks of wool and black leather galoshes. For armor they wore only comb morions on their heads.

Three of them carried the sword Léon had talked about. With two meters the Andergasters were as long as Thorsten was tall and much taller than the mercenaries that wielded them. The blades were wrapped in blankets for they were meant to cut a giant’s feet off from under him and thus kept as sharp as razors.

Two other mercenaries were no men of war, but big game hunters by trade and carried obscenely large crossbows with winches. These crossbows had to be rested on sticks in order to shoot them, for they were too heavy to hold and pull off an accurate shot with, just by hand. They also took forever to reload but Léon swore that they could punch through a giant’s skin and kill him, if the shot was good.

The three last sell-swords were artillerists and all serviced a single weapon. The scorpion, they called it, and it was something between an oversized cross bow and a ballista, shooting a bolt that was heavy and almost one meter in length. Getting the machine itself and it’s tiny wagon onto Thorsten’s ship had not been problematic, but the old nag that had pulled it to Andergast was afraid of ships and simply would not go aboard. Gnashing their teeth, the sell-swords had sold the horse to a butcher and agreed to drag the wagon from then on, until they could get another animal for the job.

“The wind is working against us.” The one talkative sell-sword said ponderously, standing at astern beside Thorsen.

There was not a large wind at all, only a mild western breeze that barely touched the feather on Léon Logue’s hat.

“That is why we are rowing and the sail is reefed.” Thorsten explained briskly, giving the rudder in his hands a little nudge.

With a steady rhythm, the oars moved up and down, splashing into the water and rising out again.

“You should have traded the ships for floats.” The sell-sword went on. “The river will become too shallow soon.”

“Our draught is less than half a step.” Thorsten explained. “We can go as far as the ford at Andrafall, and even carry her over it if we want to.”

Incredulously, the other turned his head: “How can a ship this size have such a small draught, let alone be carried?”

Thorsten felt very pleased with himself. Longships were built lightly, for swiftness and manoeuvrability, yet they were durable enough for any weather.

“It is still small though.” The sell-sword went on. “In Havena I saw a war galley with one hundred oars and towers on top, just like a castle, and I saw Hulks so big, they could sail right over this one and not even take a scratch.”

“I once saw one of your war galleys turned pirate.” Jutta, a bearish hunk of a woman who had once sailed with Thorsten’s father, said. “Turns out, below deck all the oars were pulled not by free-willing men, but slaves. One day, they had enough and freed themselves. I can’t blame them.”

“Not slaves.” The sell-sword protested. “Criminals!”

“They screamed all the same when they burned.” Jutta spat, pulling on her oar. “Had the pocks or something, the whole lot, and beached themselves too, in the middle of the sea!”

She chuckled heartily at that and Thorsten smiled. Sandbanks were much more hazardous to the large Horasian ships than they were for the smaller Thorwalsh ones.

“It’s hard to believe you went to war against his royal magnificence’s fleet, in tiny rowing boats like this.” Léon entered the conversation.

To call it a war was far-fetched. More had it been an exchange of raids by the Thorwalsh and retaliations by the Horasians with no outcome other than some burned and sunken ships and villages. Still, Thorsten was angered by the remark but Jutta answered for him.

“Ah, those were the days.” She said, grinning. “When you still had some fight in you.”

“Yeah, what happened to that?” Thorsten added. “The hetman is raiding your costs even now, and here you are, travelling with us and not losing a word about it.”

“What’s a few dead fishermen.” Léon replied with a weary grin. “Your raids have barely touched the price of fish. Meanwhile we capture a lot of pirates. I must say, your tall and strong people breeds excellent oarsmen.”

“That we do.” Jutta agreed happily and pulled on her oar.

Disarmed, Thorsten saw that Léon’s derogatory remark had escaped her completely. He felt a sour pinch in his stomach as he imagined his father, brothers and sisters, chained to an oar in the dark belly of a Horasian galley. It was worse than death. Not only was a man robbed of his freedom, but also of the opportunity to enter Swafnir’s halls. That a freedom-loving Thorwalsh could be made a slave of could only be explained by a significant amount of whip lashes. Every man had a breaking point. It shuddered Thorsten, deeply.

“Watch your tongue.” He said, softly and slowly. “The river is still deep enough to drown you and your scum and there is no one here to fish you out.”

That was true. There was no one on the river but them, no floats, no boats, no canal ships, only the occasional piece of driftwood. Léon narrowed his eyes at him.

“Aye…captain.” He replied sourly after a moment and turned away to continue watching the banks of the river.

A little later they saw a rider on the bank. The scruffy looking man was draped in a wolf-skin cloak and had what looked like a broken, rusty saber strapped to his black horse over a woolen blanket. Thorsten raised his hand for greeting, but the rider did not return the gesture. Instead, he turned his horse and rode off, startling the Thorwalsh.

“Load the crossbows and the scorpion!” Léon sharply commanded his men and immediately, his minions scrambled to work.

“What are you doing?” Thorsten asked perplexed.

“That rider means bad business.” The Horasian replied sternly. “He has the looks of a scout or sentry for some larger force.”

“…Of scoundrels, with broken sabres?” Thorsten asked jestingly and the crew echoed his laughter.

“There are raiders and outlaws in these parts!” Léon countered angrily. “I will sooner be safe than sorry!”

That drew even more laughter from the crew. A band of outlaws was the least Thorsten and his men feared.

“Let them come.” He proclaimed. “They might serve to warm us up a little before we fight the giants!”

The crew agreed and rowed harder while Léon only rolled his eyes. Although he tried not to show it, Thorsten was excited. He had accompanied his father and siblings in raiding, reaving, boarding and hijacking before, but if there really was a band of outlaws that would attempt to attack his force, it would be his first battle in command. The only drop of bitterness was that bandits and outlaws would hardly stand a chance at all, if they were so foolish to attack, which they probably weren’t.

“Pull, pull!” He bellowed at his crew. “Faster!”

“We are working against the stream and have no wind!” Léon criticized him once again. “You will not want your crew to be spent when we arrive, what if the outlaws attack?!”

“We have to even the playing field.” Thorsten boasted confidently. “We have half our stamina and they have half our courage.”

“Aye!” The crew shouted in unison, not a trace of exhaustion in their voices.

When the sun kissed the treetops behind a broken and destroyed village, they had arrived at their destination. It looked as though someone had burned down the village, though not a trace of black could be seen upon the withering timbers. Remnants of floats and bound logs still swam on the river, bound to posts on the shore. This had been a lumber-mill town, Thorsten remembered briefly.

They beached next to the ford and carried the longships on land before unloading them and turning them over for camp.

“Maybe we should go further, into the forest.” Thorsten pondered within Léon’s hearing. “Those gargantuan monsters the queen talked about might be able to spot us here if they come wandering through.”

He still had not gotten the Horasian’s view on this matter.

“You do not believe those tales, do you?” Léon asked, turning away from his sell-swords who were lifting the scorpion onto it’s wagon.

Tales, Thorsten thought. It had not even occurred to him that they might just be stories and exaggerations after what the court mage at Andergast had told him.

“Some call the giant krakens of the sea tales.” He replied cautiously. “Yet many swear to have seen them and every now and then a ship goes missing.”

Léon stared back at him with disinterest.

“If you choose to believe them, that is your right.” He shrugged. “But you would do good not to be chasing ghosts and shadows. I thank you for taking us here, I shall not forget it. We will be on our way.”

“I wish you luck. Find your brother. Alive.” Thorsten replied and the two men nodded at each other.

His quest to find his lost sibling was the one thing Thorsten respected the Horasian for, and it weighed heavy enough to look over all the reasons he despised him, for the time being.

The Horasians had just made their first step in direction of the forest when someone yelled: “Riders!”

On the other side of the river, a good three hundred strides over to where the forests began, riders broke through the undergrowth. Their horses were trotting, slowly, but more and more spilled out from in between the trees. Their faces and the weapons in their hands, made it clear that Léon had been right. They were raiders.

Like the sentry they had seen, the raiders all bore some resemblance of wolf about them, as a means of telling friend from foe. Some wore mismatched armor, their weapons were loot and most their clothing ragged.

“Finally!” White-haired Snorre Bjornson exclaimed happily.

He was an old fisher from Thorwal who had asked Thorsten if he might join them on their voyage as an oarsman in order to get an opportunity to die fighting and enter Swafnir’s halls, not an uncommon endeavour for old men whose profession did not involve regular fighting.

“We will see each other again.” He announced to everyone around. “I’ll keep your seats warm. Forgive me, but I am too old to take any chances.”

And with that the old fisher took his shield off his back and onto his left arm, pulled a throwing axe with his free hand and started walking towards the enemy.

“Wait!” Thorsten called after him. “They might not want to fight. Ask them and come back, if they don’t. Otherwise, kill as many as you can and send the others this way!”

“Aye!” Came the answer and Snorre turned and continued.

“You cannot mean to fight them!” Léon suddenly came running to Thorsten’s side. “Look how many they are, I count two hundred and fifty and they have horses all!”

“You better get going then.” Thorsten smiled at him, mildly amused.

“For the love of Rondra, at least have the wits to retreat into the forest! They have more than twice your numbers and horses all!” Léon pleaded.

“Have you grown fond of me all of a sudden?” Thorsten snorted. “I mean to charge straight at their line of plough horses, if they are foolish enough to fight.”

“Even if they were plough horses all, which they aren’t, they would ride you down like grass in this terrain!” Léon argued feverishly. “They can flank you, left, right and rear! Are there no brains in that thick skull of yours?!”

It did make sense, Thorsten thought, the raiders’ force was considerably larger than his own, and insanely large for a group of bandits by any standards. He wasn’t afraid to die fighting but it would reflect poorly on his memory having gone to Andergast to kill giants and then falling victim to a band of ragged thugs, before even having seen a giant yet. Retreating would not serve though.

“They are coming for Snorre!” Someone said and Thorsten saw six riders galloping towards the old man.

When they were close to him and did not reduce their speed, no talking was necessary. Snorre flung his throwing axe at the first rider hitting him in the face so hard that he fell off the back of his horse. That was enough already to make four of the others abort their charge and ride to re-engage. The one that didn’t had a spear locked in his armpit and meant to drive it through Snorre’s neck but it broke and splintered when the old man raised his shield at the last moment.

In turning, Snorre smashed his axe into his attacker’s back and the pain on the rider’s face could be seen even from Thorsten’s vantage point. He fell off his horse some five meters afterwards and the mare eventually slowed down and started eating flowers.

“He fights well for a fisher.” Someone remarked, drawing nodding agreement all around.

“He fights well for any man.” Jutta added, smiling.

The remaining four attackers knew that too and circled the old fisher, weapons in hand. He could not face all of them at once and so it came that the one behind him threw a spear through his left knee. Visibly grunting, Snorre went down.

Then a horn was blown and the broad front of riders advanced in slow gallop, the attackers falling in on the flanks. They rode right over the immobilized man in their way, and also over their comrade who had fallen off his horse, crushing all under their thundering hooves.

“We will take the ford and hold it!” Thorsten commanded his men. “Advance, for Swafnir, hoorah!”

“Hoorah!” The men and women echoed in unison and advanced with him into the shallow water, beating their weapons on their round, ornamented shields.

The ford was almost waist deep at the deepest, enough to deny the horses a decent charge. That way it would come to fierce hand to hand combat in the water, and Thorstens men would have the advantage. Also, allowing only thirty men standing abreast, it was narrow enough to deny any flanking manoeuvres.

“Shield wall!” Thorsten commanded when they reached the point he wanted to hold. “Anyone who brought a spear, make it to the front of the line!”

The enemy formation halted and a few of the riders dismounted producing slings and shortbows and making ready to fire.

“Raise shields!” Thorsten bellowed. “Bowmen to the back, return fire!”

It was the obvious move to tackle his favourable position and grudgingly he had to see that the enemy had far more bowmen and slingers than he had. Already stones and arrows came flying their way, but the shields took most of them. A few Thorwalsh were hit by stones, but they produced little more than painful bruises and no one went down. The return volley by his own bowmen was pathetic, but it managed to kill three enemies at least.

One Thorwalsh bowman was hit in the throat by an enemy arrow and collapsed, face down drifting down the river.

Suddenly, there was a wooshing sound over Thorstens head, coming from behind, and two riders were thrown violently off their horses, causing terror and dismay in the ranks amongst them. The bolts from the Horasian crossbows carried enough force to shoot straight through a shield and kill the man behind it.

When the scorpion was loosed, it’s heavy iron tipped bolt ripped through two horses and a human leg and the riders were buried under their mounts as they went down.

Léon pushed through beside Thorsten, his pathetic little florettt in hand.

“I saw you were short on artillery, Sir.” He grinned, keeping his head in the cover of Thorsten’s round shield as two stones and an arrow crashed into it.

"I'm no wretched sir." Throsten grumbled but was glad of the re-enforcement all the same.

As powerful as they were, the Horasian weapons took long to reload and three Thorwalsh bowmen and four enemy slingers died before the crossbows fired, once more to devastating effect. Shortly after, the scorpion fired too, taking the top of a poor man’s head off, before throwing a second one off his horse with the bloody bolt through his chest.

“When this is over, I will help you find your brother.” Thorsten told Léon, confidently. “But I fear for your longevity with that meat skewer in your hand.”

“It skewers a man as well as it does a suckling pig.” Léon laughed in reply. “You will see that soon enough.”

Thorsten had about enough of exchanging missile fire. He wanted to charge at the enemy, but that he knew would be foolish. As much as his position put him at an advantage, it put the initiative entirely into the enemy commander’s hands. The Horasian artillery fired one more time and Thorsten was down to five bowmen, before the outlaws decided to enter the melee.

Forced to advance slowly into the water, Thorsten saw the fear on their faces. There was something odd about it, though. Even though their numbers were much greater than the Thorwalsh’, they would have to see that they were like to lose fighting hand to hand. Common outlaws attacked the help- and defenseless in hopes of making an easy coin, they ran from war parties that were armed to the teeth and aching for a fight, and more than that, had little to no valuables to rob. Not these though, these had the painful looks of a greater motive about them, as though they were forced to fight. Or they were just foolish which was just as likely.

Their slow advance permitted the Thorwalsh to fell the entire first row with throwing axes. Horses panicked, men died and splashed into the water and other horses tripped over them, sending their riders tumbling as well.

“For Thorwal!” Thorsten screamed, raising his axe and the shield wall broke into open charge. It was carnage and the water turned pink and red from the blood. Who fell had a split second of time to get up again and was pushed down and drowned if he didn’t make it. In the water, the horses impaired the raiders more than they aided them and soon Thorsten and his men were walking on dead and dying animals, making it easier to hack at the elevated riders.

Piet Arnson, a madman who had eaten his infamous and mildly poisonous mushrooms before the fight, climbed over Thorstens shoulders and jumped onto the enemy formation, two short, double-bladed axes on his belt and a gargantuan longaxe in his hands. The toadstools had catapulted his mind into berserk, or whale-rage as it was called in Thorwal, and he stood on the backs of two horses, cutting men down left and right, before one of the horses died and he fell.

Thorsten saw Léon, sticking his florett into a man’s gut, time and again in quick succession until he was riddled with holes and bleeding like a pig. One of his sell swords pushed through to him and screamed into his ear, then Léon turned to Thorsten and the two pushed him to the back of their line of battle.

“What are you doing?!” Thorsten screamed angrily at them but the terrified look on Léon’s face kept him from attacking him.

“Come, you need to see.” Léon urged him and led him away from the fighting, towards the scorpion that was hastily being reloaded by it’s crew.

Then he saw them, giants, a dozen of them, standing where the bandits had broken through the undergrowth, observing the battle.

“They are still out of range, Sir!” One of the big-game hunters reported to Léon in a terrified voice.

“Why are they not attacking? They could crush the raiders from the rear!” One artillerist mentioned while he frantically worked the scorpion’s winch with a lever.

“I do not think they are here to kill any outlaws.” Léon replied, darkly.

Humans allied with giants. The idea made Thorsten sick to the stomach. The male giants were hairy and looked rather squabby, approximately four and a half times Thorsten’s height. The four females were significantly taller by up to another three meters. Ragged small clothes were all they wore, made of fur or leather, by the looks of it. The males carried large wooden sticks for weapons, the females carried none at all. Given their size and weight, they presumably didn’t need any.

They did not seem to be joining the battle as of yet though. Instead they stood and watched, and seemed rather amused by their allies’ failure. The carnage in the water had taken another turn for the ugly when the lines broke open and melted into each other. Many a raider was fleeing, on horseback or on foot, but many others pushed into the melee. Bodies were drifting downstream on the red- and pink-tainted river. The Thorwalsh had lost only twenty men yet, while more than a third of the enemy force was gone.

“Loaded, Sir!” The artillerist reported to Léon. “Do you want us to fire at the giants?”

Léon looked at Thorsten who hesitated. Then he gave a nod. It was what they had come here for after all. Léon raised his arm and the artillerists started aiming. When he brought it down, the bolt was loosed. It sailed through the air with all it’s death-bringing might and slammed into a male giant’s chest.

The giants were perplexed while their comrade collapsed and fell face first into the dirt. Then they looked over to the machine that had killed him. Thorsten’s blood froze in his veins when he saw the rage on their faces.

They covered the distance quickly and soon they emerged behind the outlaws to Thorsten’s men. He could have sworn to see a few men waver at their sight.

“Steady, hold the ford! For Swafnir!” He commanded them, but from behind his words did not seem half so convincing as from the front of the shield wall.

To his shock, the giants did not advance through the ford but beside it. Being as tall as they were, they did not need to wade through the shallow water and were able to cross the river easily at it’s regular depth.

The Horasian crossbows loosed and killed the foremost giant with two bolts to the heart. The tallest giantess took his body and hurled it onto the Thorwalsh, burying three fighters beneath it and displacing many others. The remaining male giants began to attack the Thorwalsh from the side while the giantesses marched through the river. By then, the scorpion could fire a last time, killing an eleven meter tall giantess with a bolt to the face.

“Fight!” Thorsten heard Léon scream and he accompanied his three swordsmen to face the three behemoths in front of them.

Thorsten was still in shock as the battle turned.

The tallest giantess was at the front striding towards the scorpion, ignoring the Horasians with Andergasters and walking straight through them with menacing speed, burying one under her foot. A series of cracks and a pop was heard, as the man’s guts came squirting out from under the monster’s foot. The artillerists ran for their lives but the big-game hunters still cranked their crossbows like madmen.

Léon stuck his florett into the second giantess’ leg, producing a scream, while the sell-sword that tried to slash at the same leg was stomped flat under the other.

Too late Thorsten realized that the third giantess was coming for him. At the last moment he managed to avoid being crushed under her foot and he slammed his axe into her leg with all the force he could muster. The blow did not even break the skin.

The giantess pulled her foot around and kicked him. He flew about two meters, losing his axe, and crashed onto the ground. Before he could get up, she was over him, stomping down. He rolled sideways, once again narrowly avoiding certain death. Her foot came again, but so quickly this time that she almost missed him completely. When he pulled his arm out of his shield, her bare sole crashed down on it, smashing it to pieces and driving it into the ground.

“Argh!” The giantess screamed, as a crossbow bolt slammed into her thigh.

Thorsten used this time to get up and run for an Andergaster, lying on the ground beside Léon and his last swordsman, dancing a dance of life and death with their giantess, who seemingly enjoyed the game a lot.

With a crash, the scorpion was smashed under the tallest giantess’ foot and she started running after the fleeing artillerists, quickly catching up with them.

Before he reached the obscenely long sword, Thorsten saw the man next to Léon landing a blow to their giantess’ foot, producing a scream of pain and a long, bloody gash. The beast was so furious that she concentrated on the man alone, ignoring Léon who stuck his weapon into her knee from behind. With a growl, the giantess went down to one knee and fumbled for the Horasian behind her but Léon was already around her, climbing onto her knee and sticking the florett through her chest and into her heart.

The sword was heavy and cumbersome in Thorsten’s hands. He lifted it and turned, only to see that the giantess he had been fighting had turned towards the crossbowmen. She had lifted them both by their heads and laughed like a maniac as she squeezed. The men screamed horridly as blood began to squirt out from in between the giantess’ fingers.

This was it, he realized, this was what he had come for. He could almost smell the fine ale being served and the songs of glory being sung. But he was not done for yet.

"For Swafnir!" He screamed at the top of his lungs and laughed with sheer joy when he began his charge.

The Andergaster befitted him much better than the smaller built Horasians and he slammed it into the giantess' left leg using all the force and momentum he could muster. She was still laughing at the squashed bodies in her hands, when the steel cut into her flesh. It went all the way to the mighty bone in her leg and she screamed with pain. Thorsten wrenched his weapon out of the gash while she raised her right foot above him. He had anticipated this. While it came crashing down, he already spun to the side, turning like a dancer at some wedding and using the momentum to let the heavy sword smash into the heel of the already injured leg.

Uncomfortably warm blood shot out of the first wound and drenched Thorsten head to heel. When his weapon found his opponent the next time it sounded like the crack of a whip, only so unfathomably loud that it made his ears ring. If the giantess had screamed before, she was howling now. Her entire leg seemed to fail her and she fell, hitting the ground with a thud. She was groping for where he had stood, blind with pain, but Thorsten was already on his way to her throat. She opened her eyes one last time before he brought the Andergaster down on her neck, again and again, until her boulder-sized head came off, tumbling to the side, and he was showered in even more of her blood.

He screamed towards the heart of the battle, raising his bloodied sword.

What he saw almost disheartened him though. Some Thorwlash men and women were fleeing others were cowering underneath their shields, three enemies on top of them. The giants with their long, heavy sticks were beating mercilessly into the crowd, smashing shields, arms and skulls. It seemed they did not care too much about who was at the recieving end of their blows and many a raider fell victim to them as well. The Andra ran red with blood. Maybe downstream in Andergast, they would still be able to see it. Then they would know.

Well, Thorsten thought, if he and his men were to die today than that was fine. They would meet again and toast to the glorious battle faught. The force of raiders had reduced considerably and they had killed no less than five of the giant creatures so far. Léon came running at him, drenched in blood himself.

"Run!" He screamed at Throsten and shook by his sheep skin vest. "We must flee! Now!"

"No, my friend!" Thorsten screamed back into his face. "We must die! Oh, what a day! What a glorious day!"

Léon looked back at him in sheer disbelief and terror for a moment, before he brought his arm around with the pommel of his florett. It struck Thorsten on the temple of his head and he felt his mind go numb instantly. The world swam before his eyes as he turned to the carnage in the ford one last time.

"We will meet again, beneath the sea..." He managed to mumble softly before his eyes turned back into his skull.

-

Guiltily, Janna looked before her. Empty carts, chests, boxes and baskets stood there and barely a crump of bread left. She had eaten all of it and cursed herself for a glutton. She was used to filling her belly to bursting with villagers but the last time she had been able to do that was a few days past.

Now she was full and had not eaten a single soul but that did not feel as good as she had expected. She pondered going and trying to find a village, for Laura as well as for dinner. She had been foolish before, when she had flattened entire villages, inhabitants and all, once she had gotten her fill from them. She had better brought them here, or stored them elsewise, to eat another day.

Nagash was gone, some where. Maybe she had fled when she saw that the food production could not keep up with Janna's appetite. In absence of the tiny giantess, Janna helped the builders put those wooden parts in place that were too big for them. It had the feel of toying with delicate models to it, but Janna managed without destroying anything.

From time to time, she spied one of the builders shooting glances at her breasts, bra clad, dirty and squished beneath her as she lay on her front side, trying to get the best angle on what she was doing. She entertained the idea of squishing him under a three hundred ton boob. Steve was still occupied in the smithy and Christina had taken to cataloguing plant samples after it had been revealed that the local people were, understandably, a bunch of bigoted racists and did not want to talk to her. Neither of them could see Janna but it would still be more prudent to make his death look more like an accident.

She could just crush him to paste with the wooden beam she was carrying, or carelessly drop her hand upon him on the way back. She didn't mind Steve looking at her breasts and she did not scorn a bit of positive attention either, but this was an ugly, older man with a broad back and a mighty moustache of brown hair.

He glanced again and their eyes met and Janna showed him the evillest smile she could muster.

That was almost better than popping him. He stared back at her, shaking, visibly in terror, until the reaction of the workers around him told Janna that he had pissed his britches.

She glanced around carefully a few moments before she snatched him as quick as she could, rolled side ways and put the man where her right breast had left a dent in the ground. He made a queer sound before her breast settled on top of him, something of a whimpered cry of despair, the wailing of a child from a grown man's throat. A muffled 'pop' marked the end of him.

"Back to work." She told the builders and the afore silenced hammering, sawing and shouting resumed.

Steve's head popped out of the smithy, looking curious: "What happened?"

'I squished a man under my tit, you idiot.' Janna thought viciously.

"Uhh, some builder fell." She lied instead. "But he's fine, no worries."

"Okay." He shrugged but came trotting over anyway.

"So...building houses, huh?" He observed vainly inspecting the construction sites.

Janna used that time to rise up and brush off her front side, ridding herself of any evidence clinging to her person. A well placed knee took care of the flattened corpse in the imprint of her tit, smearing it into an unrecognisable mess.

She could not help but notice that she was dirty all over again though, which made her angry. Dirt had become a part of their lives of course, but she still despised looking like the ragged builders before her. Smashing a few of them would no doubt help vent her frustration, but there was Steve and Christina too, and once again Janna despised the game of deception she was forced to play.

She exhaled through her nostrils a few times to calm herself.

'We aren't going anywhere,' she thought in her head, 'and we're not making any step into the right direction. We're spinning in fucking circles here.'

When Steve did not seem to offer anything of importance, Janna stood to her feet and walked around the village and over to the edge of the forest, where the woodcutters were. The village's supply of wood had grown short, she could see, and that much she could help them with at least. It was foolish to believe that the smokeries that cured meat and fish could come up with enough food to provide Laura when she awoke, but it seemed a step in the right direction.

The two dozen men and women looked up at her in confusion and layed down their work as she approached.

"To the village." She told them in the local tongue. "I am going to lend you a hand."

That they did, running, clinging to their saws and axes.

The average tree stood thrity meters tall, she judged, and the tallest came up just to above her knees. She grabbed a mighty oak by it's stem and pulled, then another. The roots resisted her for a heartbeat before the earth yielded and gave way to her savage strength. What did not come willingly was torn off almost effortlessly.

On this planet, she was a goddess, a force of nature. She should not have her whims denied by three puny little worms such as Valerie, Steve and Christina.

When she had collected a good dozen trees, she gathered them up and took them over to the edge of the village, where the wood cutters awaited her.

"Here." She said and dropped her load a reasonably safe distance away from them.

Still they shied away a few meters as the trees rolled from atop of each other, crashing, creaking and breaking branches. When it had settled the woodcutters still stood as though they had roots of their own, all but one who boldly rushed forward with his axe, starting to hack at a branch to sever it from it's stem.

Janna saw that Steve and Christina had come to see what the commotion was all about, standing well in the distance.

"I'll break it up for you." She told the villagers, pretending not to notice the man already at work.

Shouts erupted from the woodcutters when her foot rose but Janna only gave the man enough time to chance a glimpse at his doom before she brought it down. She felt the wood, smashing to kindling underneath her sole, not the man. But when she raised her foot, she saw that her twelve thousand nine hundred tons had not failed her. He was nothing but paste.

Janna continued to stomp on the pile of wood until all of it was broken to splinters, half of it driven beneath the earth.

"Now, come and gather it up." She told the loggers. "You will have to dig some of it out but I trust that is easier for you still."

"Move." She added coldly when none of them dared step close to where she had crushed their friend out of existence.

"Are you done collecting samples?" Janna addressed Christina after walking over to the tiny black girl.

"Did that help them much?" Christina asked in response, ignoring the initial question. "They didn't look like they liked your help."

"They're just scared." Janna shrugged purposefully unconcerned. "And I accidentally crushed one of their friends."

"You shouldn't be around small people!" Christina scolded her. "Now look what you've done! Someone's dead because you couldn't just mind your own fucking business!"

"They die all the time." Janna replied defensively. "If not me, it's falling trees crushing them or animals tearing them apart. It's some noble lordling or corrupt king and his soldiers burning their villages and all that. Or the smaller giants."

Christina did not seem to have an answer at that any more, as Janna was pleased to see.

"Anyway." The black girl said after a few moments. "You and Laura shouldn't be here."

To that, Janna could only shrug and nod.

"But we are here." She finally said, determinedly. "And, honestly, I intend to get out of this alive. So I will step on as many people as necessary and a few more. If they are too stupid to stay away from my feet, that's their problem, not mine."

Satisfied she noted that Christina did not complain, for once.

-

Atop the mountains a wind had come up. It was not a northern breeze, cold and uncomfortable, but a southern one, carrying warmer, more pleasant air. A late autumn this was and a queer one too. In the distance to the south, the titanic young woman could be seen, not quite as tall as their mountains but large enough, so that the mountain range would be little more than hills to her.

Lord Mannelig had heard the stories, one more gruesome and concerning than the next and others outright unbelievable. The two titanesses had erected a village next to the queer, enormous, shiny thing they lived in, but if they were protecting or enslaving the villagers, scouts gave differing accounts of. So far, Lord Mannelig and his subjects had remained undetected and he could only hope, that it would remain this way.

Formerly a knight to King Aele's service, Mannelig had been given a pityful spit of land to posses, "Along with all rights to the mountains north of it."

They were good mountains, rich in game as well as tin and copper, but they belonged to the clans, as it had been for as long as people could remember. When Mannelig and his men went to mine and hunt, the clansmen would fall upon them, time and time again until his party was routed. Raiding they would come, oft as not, and stole what they could. In trade, they were niggardly and suspicious. Still, Lord Mannelig had held on, growing his numbers, keeping a well trained garrison to fend off the raiders and herding ever larger numbers of goats and sheep. Lord Mutton, some of his subjects had come to call him, but unlike King Aele, Mannelig had never been cruel. Quiet, peaceful, productive, that was how he wanted his life and lands to be. By that maxim he had made a very good life for himself.

Then, he had met Bergatroll and claimed her for his wife.

A joke in the eyes of other Lords who would not even invite him to feasts, weddings and other such high-born occaisions, no one proved willing to give a daughter to him, forcing him to live like a eunuch for many years.

Then she had come. Instead of raising a motte, Mannelig had restored a huge, ancient manor with thick stone walls and a great hall that was five and a half meters high. On the day of their wedding, performed without any representative of the twelve gods, she had sat in his hall and her head had still scraped the ceiling. He had not invited any lords or sirs, either, and so only common folk had stood witness when she leaned down to her husband and kissed his face with her thick, dark lips. They despised it, all, as well he knew, for they deemed it abomination. Still, most remained loyal to him and those that fled were not missed by many.

Mannelig had been smitten, when first he lay eyes upon her. She was neither beautiful nor ugly by any standards, but she was strong and had a gentle face. More than that, she had brought his people protection and power over the mountain clans. She had roamed the hills before coming to him, killing clansmen and taking their belongings. When she came down from the mountains, chased off a goat-herder and two levy spearmen before feasting on the goats, Mannelig and his men had ambushed and cornered her.

"I will squash each and every one of you!" She had warned them, backing against a wall of cold, solid stone.

"No!" Mannelig had replied.

He had brought close to a hundred spears that day, but it was out of the question that dozens if not most of them would have perished, had it come to blows.

"Marry me!" He offered instead, sounding like a drunken fool.

'Drunk I was,' he thought, 'with love.'

"Lord Mannelig, Lord Mannelig, why won't you marry me, for the plunder that I lay before you?" That was how the song went, the song that his small folk were singing.

They could not believe, that anyone could love such a humongous thing and so they made it sound as though he had married her for the pile of plunder she was carrying. Bronze axes, helmets, painted leather shields, furs and crude emblazonments she had taken from the mountain clans, useful to have but not of import to Lord Mannelig in this matter.

She had followed, so not to be killed, he suspected, but had stayed for a roof above her head, warm meals and ale of which she could consume barrels at a time.

She was demanding, true enough, but not a monster. They slept together in the hall, the only room that could accommodate her size, and she was careful enough not to crush her husband in her sleep. Making love was...challenging, sometimes, but always rewarding. And when they were done, Mannelig would crawl up onto her huge breasts and sleep like a suckling babe.

From time to time, his wife would go up into the mountains, alone, and return with more plunder. Then, the people of the mountains would pay tribute again, and bring even more in hopes of keeping her away. By now they were paying so much that Lord Mannelig did not need to run any mining operations of his own. In his stores, copper and bronze were stacked in abundance, his herds larger than ever. In the hall, he had stacked so many furs, that even his wife could sleep comfortably. Just as the dumbest peasants tended to harvest the largest turnips, the barbarians found salt, in their effort to dig for copper and tin. Several huge sacks of the precious stuff were already stored at the foot of the mountain, more than they needed for the winter.

But trade was dead, it seemed. The small, wormy game trail that led to Mannelig's manor had not seen a wagon in some time now and they were running low on ale. The local water was drinkable after a good boil and there was fresh water to be had in the mountains, but without ale, he feared his wife would grow unhappy. She loved to drink.

'We may have to send out for traders.' He thought. 'Let the people know what riches I have collected.'

That would draw more refugees, no doubt, but at this rate Mannelig could feed ten times as many subjects as he had now. He kindly had taken in anyone in need, given them food and shelter and organized work and housing for them. The people dwelled scattered around his large home and into the mountains in natural caves, huts of stacked stone or wood and the poorest of them in hide tents. Mannelig had let people sleep in his halls too, but that was before he and his wife slept there. The south end of the hall, restored in wood, where before there had already been a massive doorway, was able to swing open entirely now, hanging on huge bronze hinges. Lord Mannelig had done everything he could to accommodate his wife, and in return she had made him into the happiest man under the sky.

The Lord loosened the coat over his boiled leather shirt. He had started to sweat, marching down the mountain on narrow trampled paths. There were no foot hills here, only large mountains of hard, naked rock and even larger mountains north of that.

"Milord." An old goats-herd greeted him mumbling on the way down.

There was no bow, not even a nod, Mannelig recognized dismayed. Instead the man stared gloomily at him for a moment before he spat on the ground. Lord Mannelig was used to that though.

'My people love me not.' He reflected once again. 'Though I have been good to them and kind.'

But as long as he had his wife, the opinions of goat-herders concerning marriage and abominations did not trouble him. More cold eyes greeted him and his party on the way down, as the huts and stables came more often the lower they went and he thought to hear the word abomination in between the milords and muttered curses. At the foot of the mountain, where rocks and pebbles met the edge of the forest, his manor stood.

"Milord." Ulf, captain of the garrison, greeted him as monotonously as ever.

"Has there been a trader during my absence?" Mannelig asked him.

"Uh, no, milord." Ulf replied, lowering his gaze. "But the bea...uh, I mean, your lady wife, has brought a dozen more goats."

"Has she?" Mannelig was surprised. "When did she go?"

"Uh, shortly after you departed, milord." Ulf replied, still talking to his boots.

"What's wrong?!" Mannelig demanded. "Is your lord so uncomely that you cannot look upon his face?"

"Milord..." Ulf began uncomfortably. "Two scouts I sent after her. They..."

"Ha, that was foolish. Her legs are long and she can traverse these mountains much faster than any man." Mannelig interrupted him with a smile.

"Yes, milord." Ulf went on. "Only...we found them. Dead. One was crushed flat, the other torn to pieces."

"Ah, the mountains are treacherous." The Lord grimaced. "Falling stones and animals...their deaths are unfortunate. Give their families the usual compensation."

"But, milord..." Ulf started, raising his head, showing a hint of desperation in his eyes.

"I'll hear no more of this." Mannelig cut him off again.

"Yes, milord." Ulf bowed and took his leave.

'So, that again.' Mannelig sighed, thinking.

The small folk were so hidebound and suspicious of his wife that they would blame anything on her. Occasionally people from the outskirts of the settlement would turn up dead, but that had always been the case. Ever since his marriage, no one had been killed by clansmen though, but the commoners did not seem to see that that was good. The raping, the plundering and the carrying off women had all stopped as well.

Yes, his wife was demanding, but not a monster. The people had reacted badly to the deaths of a few serving girls however. His wife liked them young and pretty but their small frames did not serve them well when they got themselves in between Bergatroll and where ever it was she was moving. One girl had died whilst sweeping the floor, with his drunken wife sitting down clumsily on top of her. She had been so ashamed that she pretended not to notice and drank and feasted merrily away. When they finally recovered the girl after his wife had crawled upon her furs to sleep she had been as flat as a flounder.

Another had died under his wife's huge teat, smothered to death keeping her company while Lord Mannelig was away.

'That one's on me.' He thought ruefully. 'I should not have kept away so long.'

The last one had been killed trying to wake his wife from her sleep. Half asleep, sore and sick from too much ale, Bergatroll had flung the girl through the hall, smashing her on the wall at the opposite side.

'That one was quick, at least.' Lord Mannelig allowed.

He knew from experience what it meant to be pinned beneath his wife, how heavy she was, how strong, how utterly powerless one felt beneath her.

His cock stiffening in his britches, he entered the hall through a small door in the huge gate. The air inside was warm and sticky and it smelled of ale, smoke and roasting meat.

"Husband!" His wife's thunderous voice greeted him mockingly.

She had drunk again, he could tell from her voice. Naked and enormous, she sat at the other end of hall, a barrel of ale in one hand and the carcass of a roasted goat in the other. A fire burned in the middle of the hall where three more were being turned on spits. It made his wife's long, black hair and copper skin shine so beautifully. She put half the carcass into her mouth and chewed noisily, crunching the animal's bones in between her crooked teeth.

'She does have crooked teeth.' He thought. 'But that does not make her hard to look upon.'

She had developed a bit of a belly too, since their marriage. Mutton and goat were greasy and she drank lots and lots of ale as well. But most of it had gone to her breasts it seemed, which pleased him.

'And maybe, there is my child in her belly.' He allowed himself to dream. 'A son, might be. He would grow taller than any man, maybe as tall as her!'

A son, grown to more than ten meters, would make a fine heir.

"I missed you while I was atop the mountains." He said coming over.

In the hall, at least, the serving girls curtsied and bowed, even if their Milords sounded a little fearful. His wife's kiss was greasy and tasted of goat and ale and Mannelig had to wipe his face clean with his cloak afterwards.

She belched before she spoke: "I was displeased not to find you here when I returned. My feet were sore and in need of rubbing."

He smiled at that: "I hear you brought more goats."

"I had a craving." She admitted. "But neither you nor the small folk had any mountain goats that I liked."

"That is sweet of you, not to weigh down our stocks." He replied. "But next time, have Ulf or me fetch you some. Two boys died while they were climbing after you."

"Why would they climb after me?" She cocked her head, challenging. "Does my husband not trust me any more? Does he feel the need to spy after me?!"

Her tone was growing progressively angry.

"No." Mannelig raised his hands to calm her. "It wasn't me, sending the boys. That was Ulf."

"Then he should pay the families the compensation. Not you!" She snapped at him.

"That's fine." He waved her off. "I have..."

"It's not fine!" She roared. "To compensate is to admit!"

The serving girls stopped their work all at once, anxiously glancing over.

"I just feel bad for their families, is all." Mannelig wriggled uncomfortably where he stood.

"You are such a measly worm!" His wife spat at him. "No wonder your people laugh at you behind your back!"

The lord gave the serving girls a look and they continued working, pretending to haven't heard.

"That's settled then." He smiled after she had remained silent for a time, sipping ale, angrily staring at the wall next to her.

The roast was fresh and good and he even allowed himself a cup of ale to wash it down with. He ate seven ribs and an onion ere he was full and motioned for his wife to eat the rest of the animal. The two others that had remained when he entered had went down her gullet already. After that she dismissed the serving girls.

"Come here, my good-for-nothing husband." The giantess said in a raspy voice.

She had turned sideways, exposing her roundly curved hips and large breasts to him. He loved it when she did that. On the way over to her, he was already struggling out of his clothes and arrived before his wife, naked and hard. Even though his head already started to grey, he had a lean body, tough from activity and avoiding overeating.

"Ohh, my little husband is excited." She mused and touched his cock with a huge finger.

It was all he could do not to spill his seed then and there. He loved her so much. When he tried to shove her on to her back so that he could start in between her legs, she told him: "No."

Instead she picked him up and laid him down on the furs so that she could reach him with her mouth. It was not often that she did that, but it was the best thing she could do to him. He moaned as her lips closed around his cock and she began to suck gently. Then she caressed the underside of his manhood with her tongue, driving him almost mad with pleasure.

Suddenly though, she stopped and raised above him.

"Ah, what are you doing?" Mannelig asked her smiling face when she mounted him. "I don't think that's such a good...urgh!"

Her weight drove the air out of his lungs.

"Please...get off me." He begged while she moved back and forth, grinding her slick, warm womanhood on his cock.

Her lips were pushing into his belly painfully when she came forward and his hips and legs felt like they were about to break.

"Awww." She pitied him. "Is my tiny husband too small for his lady wife?"

She got off for a heartbeat before sliding forward and settling on his chest.

'She's going to kill me.' Lord Mannelig thought as he found himself unable to breathe.

He was harder than he had ever been, then. Some part of him loved it, loved her, more than anything. It wasn't for the first time since their marriage either.

"You are not even supporting a fifth of my weight, lord husband." She told him from above. "I could crush you with my cunt if I wanted to. Would you like that?"

'Can't say I wouldn't.' He thought while his wife let him feel more of her mass, slowly crushing him to death.

He wondered if that was how the servant girl had felt when Bergatroll had sat down upon her. She must have squirmed, fought, clawing with teeth and nail at his wife's unyielding flesh. She had not been killed instantly, that much had been plain by her fingernails that she had ripped off on the stone floor.

"Listen." Bergatroll commanded and her playful tone was gone. "Ulf will pay the compensation. Not you. Understood?"

He nodded his head vigorously and tried to croak but couldn't.

"The same will be true for any oaf who sends scouts after me again." She continued and he nodded again, his head starting to spin.

She smiled warmly and gave him more of her weight to ponder upon: "You don't need to know what I do to the people of the mountain. Just know that I had a lot of fun with those boys. And I'm going to have even more fun with the next they send after me."

While she spoke, he could feel the life being crushed out of his body before all was black.

'She's done it.' He thought, hollowly. 'Or has she. If I'm dead, I have died a happy man.'

It was not the end though. When he came to his senses she had rolled beside him and spread her legs, allowing him to finally get to work, heaving, shaky on his feet. After he was able to regain his erection he spent himself in her too, but she did seem disinterested and already half asleep. Still, after some dozy minutes he managed to stir her again and made her gasp and moan with excitement until she was finished.

"I had gone the wrong way and had to turn back." She whispered to him, after, whilst she cradled him in her arms. "My blood was up and I chanced upon them following me, so I crushed the first under my foot while listening to the other's pleas before I ripped out his arms and legs."

Somehow, that made him hard again, and he wanted to love her once more but she only laughed, stuck his head in between her breasts and crushed it until he was dizzy all over again. Then she laughed even more when she discovered that he had spent his seed in the process.

"Give my soles a lick." She chuckled, tossing him away. "You good-for-nothing husband."

'It was stupid of Ulf to send those scouts.' Mannelig reflected, licking. 'She's demanding, yes, but not a monster.'

-

Janna was crushing people again, that much Dari knew. She could not see the titanic sadist from her window, but she could read the reactions of the villagers outside. Parents were eager to keep their loved ones in the shadows. Janna and Laura seldom steppen on any houses, but were happy to go an extra step to murder anyone they spied running around in the open, especially if they were alone.

She could also see Janna's massive shadow shift over the village whenever she moved, which she could do at terrifying speed. The gargantuan tormentor had brought wood and smashed it to kindling, along with some man called 'mumbling Tom' as two women, passing in front of the window had been discussing. Dari knew the man. An unexpectedly fearless wood cutter who had come in with the refugees that Dexter had led to Lauraville. Janna's stomping had shook the walls of every hut and hovel and all the wood cutters could find of mumbling Tom afterwards had been splinters of wet, red-painted wood.

For some reason, Janna was not eating anyone though, which seemed to give some of the villagers hope. They were fools, Dari concluded. As soon as she was hungry again, Janna would send people down her gullet as she always did, especially since the village had run short on food.

Nagash, the forewoman, had gone in to the woods as well, presumably to find more. If only, Dari could escape Birsel's whore house, but her back still ached. They had fitted her for a leathern collar with an iron fixing, attached to a chain that made her feel like a piece of cattle. The lock that fixed it had been almost too easy to pick the last time, but they had caught her, whipped her, and placed her under constant supervision.

Her confiners were two girls, one of red, one of golden hair. The golden haired one was a feeble thing, but the red head was taller than Dari by a head. Not, that that mattered much, but they would scream and cause commotion if she tried to escape and then it would be the whip again.

The girls acted submissive around Birsel, but elsewise exactly like her, within the pecking order they had worked out amongst themselves.

'Fools.' Dari thought again.

They thought themselves higher than the average villager, but did not see that their vain and arrogant lives would be cut short, as soon as Laura or Janna got an itching in between their godly legs that demanded scratching by a tiny human being.

Birsel had survived that, to hear her tell it, which was apparently why she was where she was now. Any others had not been so lucky.

The two girls stared at Dari, hateful and unrelenting. None of the villagers had forgotten Dari, the knife-wielding cut-throat. What had saved her of any new lynching attempts was the fact that they thought her in league with Nagash. Now, unarmed and Nagash gone for the moment, she started worrying again.

The worst thing was, that nothing was happening. The surreal training of how to please the 'goddesses' was only happening ever so often and in between licking cunts and listening to Birsel's lectures, where the 'whores' could distract themselves with daily chores, Dari could only stare out of the window and listen to whatever few words the passers-by were dropping.

Xardas, for all his weird magic and sorrowful smiles was not half as smart as he made himself out to be.

'Safe the world.' she thought, scoffing in her mind.

Kill the Empress of Gareth or any of the puppeteers that were controlling her, kill the Horas or the Sultan of Khom, kill the Bornyaren of the Bornlands, any of such would have been a task that she was suited to. But rescuing a druid from the clutches of two sadistic giantesses that dwelled in a demonic sanctum of steel was impossible!

But where was she to go? The amulet hung heavy around her neck. Xardas had come, the last time she called to him, but it was as though he had know the hopelessnes of rescuing the druid then and there beforehand. And if she failed? If she was not equal to the task that Xardas put before her? Then the world would end, or so the wizard had said.

Her train of thought was suddenly interrupted, when a strange face appeared in front of the window. White eyes gleamed brightly in a sea of black, intense, with pupils dark as night. They glimpsed curiously into the room, studying intently. Short cut hair of similar blackness hugged the head frizzly like some fur helmet. The mouth of dark, brown lips formed an 'O' when the eyes fell on Dari's chain.

Dari knew faces like these. They belonged to the people's most south of the continent. Wild, jungle-dwelling savages they were, hunted for by slavers of the city-states just north of the jungles. Occasionally, one of them would be set free, or flee, and make his way north were slavery was forbidden outside of villeinage. Gareth's taverns always held a few of these dark-skinned men and women and their stories had always been the ones Dari liked best.

But Dari was sure that none of them had ever wandered as far as Andergast where bigots might kill them just for the colour of their skin, thinking them ill, dirty or casting dark magic.

The girl's clothes were strange. It looked like an ornamented suit of some sort, but there was a system behind the ornaments, as though they served a higher purpose. Grey and orange it was, but Dari could not think of any faith or order she knew, that combined those colours. The material seemed strange too, somehow more rich and smooth than silk, but thick and durable, and otherworldly more than anything else.

'Is she a wizard?' Dari pondered. 'Has Xardas send her to help me out or spur me on?'

"It's one of the goddess' friends." One girl whispered to the other. "Too bad it's the shit-skin. The other is a beautiful girl and the last a handsome hero. This one looks like she needs a good scrubbing."

"Surely, the goddess wants to teach us something by sending them to us?" The other girl replied, a sense of uncertainty in her voice.

"How may we serve you?" She stood up and curtsied but the first whore grabbed her by the hand.

"They do not speak our tongue." She whispered and the spoken to gasped.

The black girl kept looking at Dari for some reason, visibly thinking, and seemingly disapproving of something. She frowned, cocked her head, looked around outside, then turned back, frustrated. She motioned to her own neck before pointing at Dari and making a quizzical face.

"She wants to know why I am chained." Dari understood.

"You are chained because you are a dangerous animal that doesn't know it's place." The red-haired girl hissed at her.

'You are welcome I saved your village from the ogres.' Dari thought. 'For all the good that did me.'

"Tell her that." She replied instead but earned only and angry grunt in reply.

Amused, Dari shrugged at the black girl, giving an apologetic look. The reaction of her jailers had told her that the girl had some power or station at least which got her an idea. She made a pleading gesture with her hands, tried to look innocent and gave the chain attached to her collar a tow. The iron rattled dimly as it fell back upon the wooden floor.

The black girl studied Dari for a moment, then wandered off with large determined strides. It hadn't worked, the girl had not set her free.

And the whores were unamused too.

"I do not know what you did." The red-head spat. "But you'll get whipped for this, be sure."

She produced the long, thin willow rod that Birsel punished her subjects with when she deemed them 'insolent', the same whip that had already given Dari a back of red stripes to show for. Knowing that resistance was futile, Dari freed her back of shirt and vest and bent over on the bed, so that the whore might give her another beating. The first one had hurt, but not to the extend that it could break her. That one had been administered by Birsel herself and Dari doubted that the red-head was able to lash much harder than that.

Before the first blow fell though, Birsel's whorehouse was cast in shadow.

"Who is chained here?" Janna's thunderous voice boomed from above.

Feet rushed over the floorboards in the hall shortly before the front door was opened.

"Goddess!" Dari heard Birsel proclaim loudly outside. "We are your humble servants! Are you...in need? I have trained many beautiful girls to service you! Would you like to take a look?"

"Keep the fuck-toys indoors." The giantess replied angrily. "I asked a simple question. Give me an answer before I squeeze it out of you."

'Yes!' Dari thought. 'Nothing would be sweeter than Janna smashing the arrogant harridan into a pulp.'

Then she understood that Janna was asking for her, and she thought: 'No!'

"The girl!" Brisel replied, not without a disapproving undertone. "We chained the girl that killed a giant, or so we are told. By orders of the forewoman, we did that. Goddess, if I could interest you in any of my other girls that are much better trained..."

Birsel despised Dari for some reason and had taken immense pleasure at whipping her. Dari hoped the whore monger was foolish enough to deny her to Janna, so that Janna might use Birsel instead, for what ever she had in mind.

"Why is she in chains, though?" Janna asked from above, interrupting Birsel.

"She is dangerous." Birsel replied, "And unobliging."

'Unobliging!' Dari thought. 'That cunt's words are getting fancier every day. And she is lying. I am here, because I have demonstrated that I can kill giants and Nagash does not want anyone who can threaten her about her person.'

She had figured out that much herself, and some girl had let slip that Laura wanted her to survive. That was the reason behind the collar and chain, she concluded. Nagash meant to keep her as a lap dog, a toy she could fuck and torture until Dari would never so much as think about crossing her, she realized all of a sudden.

Between that, Janna and staying in the whorehouse, the latter seemed almost like paradise.

"The fighter?" The titaness sounded perplexed. "What did she do so that you might keep her in chains? My friend wishes to know."

'You are an idiot.' Dari cursed at herself. 'You have written your death warrant, and signed it too.'

"She...umm...ehh..." Birsel stammered, not able to think of a lie quick enough. "The forewoman said to..."

"Bring her out." Janna cut her off, crisply.

Like a flash of sudden lightning, Dari was scared. Too well, she remembered being stuck in the giant bottle before thrashing around in Janna's mouth, waiting to be swallowed alive. This was not good.

"No!" She screamed when they came for her.

She could not even remember how to kill, she was so afraid, and instead of punching and kicking the whores' throats in or strangling them with her chain, she wriggled, squirmed and thrashed like a little girl.

"I can see what you mean." Janna said, amused, and Dari stopped thrashing.

She hadn't even noticed that they had already arrived outside.

The titaness' voice sounded even more terrifying directly beneath her. She was standing on the road in front of Birsel's house and everyone around kept well away from her feet. Dari could never escape of how massive Janna was.

Her legs alone were fifty meters long and were clad in blue, sturdy britches, covered with dirt. Her boot-clad feet were easily fifteen meters long, five meters wide, anything beneath them crushed and compacted. Her breasts were humongous, even for her scale, and looked as though the two of them were enough to flatten a bergfried. They were contained by an ornamented piece of garment, dirty as well, with string that otherwise could have carried a bridge of proportions such as the world had never seen.

Her huge, smiling face was ogling down at her and Dari turned away in terror.

Then, she saw the black girl, standing closer to the house, looking at her. They all looked, waiting to see what Janna would do with her.

'A stomp, please!' A voice said in her mind. 'Just a quick stomp. Turn me in to a stain beneath your shoe, make it quick!'

But Janna would most likely not make it quick. Not with her.

Dari's thoughts were racing and she had to fight hard in order to keep them from revolving around all the gruesome things Janna could do to her. Pleading with Janna, she knew, had a tendency to make things worse, so that was out of the question. Should she act mad? Maybe that would make the giantess dispose of her in a quick way. Should she confess to any lie that Birsel might have come up with by now, or defend her innocence, asking to be freed? After all, Laura had commanded for Dari to live.

"Tell me true, little one." Janna adressed her, smiling ominously. "Why did they chain you?"

There was not enough time to think.

"I killed giants!" Dari blurted out, hysterically. "Nagash is afraid I might kill her too!"

"Did she make any attempt on the life of the forewoman?" Janna asked then.

"No, goddess, none that we know of. She's been the forewoman a leal servant, as far as I can tell..." The voice of Hammer replied from the other side of Janna's mighty footwear.

The question had had been directed Birsel but in a twist of marvellous justice, Hammer, the smith, had decided to answered instead. The craftsmen's strength was more in his arms and back than in his head and he probably didn't even know what he had done. Dari wanted to kiss him. She saw him step around the gargantuan leather boot, on his shoulder the hand of a young, handsome man that wore the same strange suit as the black girl.

The two alien humans and the humongous titaness started to converse in the queer, alien tongue of theirs. It was weird to hear a normal person speak it but Dari did not fail to note that they very much spoke as equals. They were talking about her too, which she knew from the looks and nods they gave her. To her astonishment she thought to hear praise in Janna's voice and the man even pursed his lips and gave a commendatory nod.

It was enough to make Dari's head spin.

When the black girl came over to pull her on to her feet, she felt like retching.

"Please don't let her kill me." She whispered feebly to her, weak-kneed, tears in her eyes.

The girl didn't understand and gave an irritated look for a moment before compassion filled those bright, white shining eyes and she hugged Dari and started to rub her back. When they pulled out, the black girl looked into her eyes and smiled.

"Christina." She said, pointing at her self.

"Dari!" Dari replied, crying, unwilling to let go of the girl. "My name is Dari!"

Somehow, when Janna took her, she had not been afraid any more. The giantess carried her almost gingerly in her hand, her two alien friends in the other, and put them all down in the open field of trampled earth outside the village.

"You are the new forewoman." Janna addressed her out of the blue.

Even if she felt sure that Janna wasn't going to crush or eat her, this was far more than she had expected.

"But...but..." She stammered. "Nagash..."

"Well, if she returns, she is forewoman again, and you are second in command." Janna interrupted, annoyed. "No more shackling you, you have a problem with anyone, you come to me. You want anyone gone from the face of the earth, you come to me."

'Birsel.' Dari thought. 'And the two whores that guarded me.'

Janna could have the fuckfest of her live with those three, reducing them smears on her crotch as she had seen Janna and Laura do with the unfortunate brunette. But the thought did not cross her lips.

Then Janna started to explain her real intentions.

Protect 'Christina' and 'Steve' while they were going about their business in Lauraville. Oddly reminding her of Lionel Logue, whom Janna had half-eaten and spattered all over the ruins of Ludwig's keep, they meant to study the local population, flora and fauna. They also meant to learn the local tongue, in which Dari was to be of as much help as she could. She vowed as much, but hoped that the two would learn fast. Else, there was no doubt in her mind, Janna would not be pleased.

Also, there was to be no violence. That point was a strange one, for Janna went to great lengths to stretch it out. They could hang thieves or murderers at need as long as Steve and Christina were about, but else-wise should keep them for Janna and Laura to use whenever the two strangers were not present to witness it.

She should keep the names of those she needed killed for being lazy or other reasons, but was to keep that fact away from Steve and Christina at any cost. Dari understood she would need to brief the entire village on these demands, and everyone had to play their part.

It was a fractal tower that Janna was erecting there, Dari judged, and if it came crumbling down it would be right upon her head. Some part of her hoped that Nagash had returned by then, though she was not sure what the giantess would make of Dari's new station. If it would serve to help her in her quest remained to be seen. For now she was glad to be out of Birsel's clutches and back on her feet again.

Afterwards, amazingly, Janna helped where she could, which put her mostly at the construction site of the gargantuan structure they were building for Nagash. If the forewoman didn't return, Dari inteded to use the house as a hall where the villagers could hold meetings with the comforts of warm fires and a roof above their heads. Surely, they would like that.

The beams for this building had to be made out of the stems of the largest and strongest oaks. Finding these proved to be as easy as child's play with Janna's help. She allowed the chief woodcutter to sit on her palm, walking through the forest, whilst he would point out trees to her that she then tore out of the ground. She even ripped off the biggest branches for them, so that the woodcutters could hack the stems in shape right next to the construction site.

Dari was worried she would have to choose a new man in charge for the wood cutters later on, but for now Janna seemed to have killed enough people.

Steve and Christina in tow, Dari attempted at solving the food problem. Both smokeries would provide a new batch of meat before sundown and the hunters and gatherers would hopefully bring in plenty of food in the evening. Tomorrow, though, she would have to send most of those who worked processing food into the woods.

The yield would not be plentiful too. Hunters and trappers had already complained to Dexter that they had to move further and further to find game. Some had even taken to hunting frogs. It would not be long until they would offer snails, worms, bugs or even bark as food. The gatherers found less and less wild fruit and berries and the amount of saw dust in the jam they produced was already almost too much to bear.

When the food went short, people would move away, Dari had no doubt. Then they would eat what few domestic animals remained to them, while Laura and Janna stuffed their bellies with starving villagers, driving more people away.

If only Dexter was there, to lead another raiding party.

While walking through the village, she continuously pointed at things to make Steve and Christina learn their names. Each time, she waited patiently until both of them had gotten it right and when she pointed at an object whose name she had already taught them, gave them sufficient time to come up with an answer.

"I. walk." She taught them, gesturing at herself, walking.

"You. walk." She added then, pointing first at Steve and then at the ground next to her.

"Oh, haha, Steve walk!" The boy imped and the black girl rolled her eyes.

Steve never missed an opportunity to jape and fool around. Such seemed to be his nature, but he overdid it in a fashion that betrayed that he wanted to woo Dari. At one point he had even presumed to gently touch her arm and Dari had to resist the urge to punch him.

"I am walking." Christina said then, ambling over, gracefully.

Dari gave her an appreciative nod before the back of Steve's hand brushed against her buttocks. She bit her tongue, hard, so to keep herself from breaking one of his legs. Instead, she forced a smile and moved on.

'I'd fuck you.' She thought. 'If it would take me up there, to Vengyr. I'd even suck your cock.'

But to understand that, the boy would have to learn much more of her tongue and she would not suck anything before that. The black girl was much more promising even though Steve had received a head-start from Hammer. The smith and the alien boy had somehow taken a brotherly liking to each other, and Steve soon had a nice little knife to show for it.

'And if I don't get what I want after I fuck you, I will use it to cut your tiny little cock off.'

-

Nagash loved the wind in her hair when she ran. It had the feel of freedom to it, as did the fact that she was well away and out of Janna's menacing shadow. Part of her did not want to go back, but she knew that she would. An entire village under her was too good an opportunity to pass up.

'But.' She decided. 'I will do this more often.'

She loved hunting. After running so long that her legs ached beyond bearing she stopped a while to catch her breath. Slowly, the forest came alive again around her. Birds were singing, leaves rustling, the echoes of her thundering foot falls gone.

The beauty of the day did not escape her, even though she payed it little heed.

A breeze of wind danced around her, lifting a few fallen leaves. It carried a sent, faint, but still recognizable. A broken twig danced on a scrub of brush. Nagash tore it off, sniffed at it and crushed it between her fingers.

"Human." She muttered under her breath and smiled.

It was a sweet scent, young and feminine. She drew it in, consumed it, followed it. With slow careful steps she stalked through the trees. forests did not befit a large being such as she was. Too many branches in the way, hanging too low, too many twigs and leaves on the ground, crushing underneath her foot.

Another gust of wind, the scent again, stronger. She moved on, causing as little commotion as she could. As perriless as it was, it was entertaining. She could not wait to see the face of her victim when she would come upon her.

Then, suddenly, it was gone.

"Forewoman!" A voice called out behind her.

The giantess spun around. A girl in a ragged dress stood ten meters behind her, right where Nagash had walked. The girl looked a little puzzled, but also strangely relieved.

"Thank the gods it is you, forewoman.", She said coming closer, "I was scared when I heard something big moving through the woods."

Nagash was as flabbergasted as she was disappointed. Her prey had heard her and hid. But instead of letting her sniff her out of her hiding spot, the girl had decided that she was not a threat and come out. She was of early adulthood, remainders of childish features still visible in her face. Not reasonably tall or tiny for her age, sex and race, with dirty brown hair and lively, little brown eyes.

"Are you hunting?" The girl asked away. "I'm catching frogs myself."

She pointed to a muddy trickling of water nearby.

"I caught three, so far. It's not very good today, I'm sorry, forewoman." She held up the line she had bound them to, looking disappointed.

The frogs were fat though, and thrashing and kicking as she held them up.

"I hope the goddess likes frog." She went on. "If not, we can spice them with some herbs and make them taste just like chicken! My mother knows how. Oh!"

By then, Nagash had walked over to her and yanked the line out of her tiny hand. She lifted it to her face and regarded the frogs for a moment, before she bit them off by the leg they were bound, sealing them inside her mouth. Their taste was bitter and slimey but Nagash was not one to waste any food. Swallowing them whole was easy, for they were barely the size of Nagash's fingernail.

"Forewoman!" The girl stammered. "If...if...you are d...displeased with me I...I can catch more. And...uh...I have set...traps!"

Nagash wanted her. Her loins wanted her. She felt the hot wetness in between her legs, itching to be pleased. The girl did not seem to understand what was going on but knew that she was in trouble. Nagash imagined she were Daisy, cowering before her.

"Please, forewoman." The girl begged. "I'll catch more I...I promise."

She backed away while Nagash ambled after her, keeping threateningly close.

"Lose that." She said bending down and ripping the girl's rags of with a tear. "You don't need that any more."

Naked and shivering the girl stood, tears in her eyes. She understood now.

"Please..." She whispered, her voice broken. "I'll do anything..."

"Keep begging." Nagash replied in a husky voice.

The girl did not oblige her, but started sobbing instead. That was just as good. Nagash did not want her to be willing.

She crouched down and layed the girl on her back. The ground was soft and covered in moss, ferns and fallen leaves. Nagash crawled onto her, lifting her loincloth. Almost gently, she bestrode the girl, dragging her swollen, slick nether lips over her young, naked body.

The girl whimpered and turned her head in disgust.

"Are you a maiden?" Nagash asked her, rubbing herself on the little girl.

She nodded feebly, not turning her head. Nagash smiled. A scrub of brown hair grew in between the girl's legs. Nagash slipped a hand beneath it and probed around with a finger. She could feel the girl's tiny lips and started rubbing.

"Please..." She sobbed again.

Nagash's fingers were too big to enter her, so she stuck her pickie up her own cunt and tried again with the additional lubrication. Slowly, very slowly, she managed to enter the girl, moving her finger back and forth again, rhythmically, every time reaching deeper. She was still too big though, and soon she felt something snap. That was the maidenhead, she imagined, along with some other things, that were not supposed to tear during lovemaking. The girl winced in pain.

Nagash smiled mildly and drew her finger out, bestriding her again.

She was not gentle this time. The teasing had left her only more wanton and there was no sense in holding back any longer.

"Please, forewoman, you are too big!", The girl managed to squeak before Nagash's hips rolled over her torso, crushing the air from her lungs.

Rips snapped as she ground harder, harder and harder. The girl was too weak for Nagash's lust. She was thrashing, or trying to, but her feeble squirms only served the giantess' pleasure. Then she stared up at Nagash's face, pleading, her mouth a grimace of helplessness and pain.

Nagash looked her square in the eye as she fucked the tiny girl to death. Upon the peak of her lust, she reared up on her knees before burying the girl's face under her cunt, again and again. Violently she slammed herself onto her tiny doll's head and torso, moaning and screaming.

When at last the tiny skull was smashed to pulp beneath her, she was finished. The idea, that the last thing the girl had seen was her slick, moist womanhood crushing her face gave Nagash a last, pleasurable shudder.

She cleaned herself of the blood with some water from the meagre stream nearby before she headed for Lauraville. She remembered the direction from where she had come and soon enough she would find the trail of smashed branches and ferns she had trampled, running.

It was awfully quiet all of a sudden which gave her a sense of unease. No doubt, her moans and cries, the thuds on the ground and squelching of the girl's skull had driven the birds off. But now she could not even hear those in the distance any more.

The wind was gone too. No leaves rustled, no branches moved, she could hear no bugs walking beneath the fallen foliage. She stopped, listened. Nothing. Only her own heart thumping in her chest in the afterglow of lust. But then, there, a bug on the ground, hurrying away as quickly as it's miniscule legs could carry it.

It was odd, Nagash could feel it, a certain tension in the air, in the trees, in the ground.

Something big was approaching her head from behind with terrifying speed. She ducked, fast, but not quite fast enough and she could feel it, bouncing off her skull, drawing blood.

She spun around. At first she thought a tree was attacking her, a tiny one, eight or nine meters tall, crooked, with thin branches, it's stem covered with moss. The cudgel appeared to be a stone at the end of one of it's branches and it came at her again with a grunt.

She stretched her hand out as fast as she could, clutching the thing in the middle. Then she saw eyes in the moss. Then a nose and finally a face.

'A giant!' She realized, astonished. 'A male giant!'

Male giants were smaller than their female counterparts and this one in particular. At two thirds her size, he had no chance of wrenching his wrist out of her grasp. He was old too, stone old, and dirty. That's why she had mistaken him for a tree before, he looked like he had not washed in a dozen years and turned into a piece of forest himself.

He gave another grunt as he tried to pull free of her.

Nagash grabbed him by the throat under his moist, moss-covered beard and slammed him against a nearby tree. That weakened him enough to let go of his club.

The thought of mating with him crossed Nagash's mind but he was too old, too ugly and unclean. She had never mated with a giant, ever, but decided that if this was the only one available to her, she would content herself with smashing helpless little humans under her cunt to quench her yearning.

He stopped struggling. Nagash had crushed his throat for too long. When she released him, he sunk to the ground, grunting again, before drawing a gasping breath that sounded finally like leaves in the wind.

Under his thick, bushy eyebrows he eyed her with contempt.

'Go on.' His eyes seemed to say. 'Do your worst.'

She could smash him, Nagash had no doubt, break his neck or squeeze the life from his throat with her savage strength. She could trample on his old skull until it was pulp or even sit on his chest and let time and weight do the job for her.

'But why did you attack me?' The question lingered in her mind.

She said it aloud but received no reply in return. She grabbed his throat again, pulling him up, lifting him off his feet against the tree.

"Why did you attack me?!" She screamed at him.

He was not able to reply, but Nagash did not know if she wanted him to any more. His eyes wandered over to the ruined corpse of the girl.

'For her.' His eyes said, widening. 'For revenge!'

A sharp pain shot through Nagash's leg and she dropped him.

A bear had appeared out of nowhere and buried it's teeth into her calf. She screamed and smashed it aside with her fist. The beast's jaws took a chunk of her flesh with them. Warm blood was running down her leg when she noticed a human standing a few meters away.

Where the giant had been tiny, the man and his beast were massive for their kind. He was thick built, two meters tall and bearded and the bear might have been twice that size if it stood on it's hind legs.

The animal came at her again, but this time Nagash was prepared. She gave it a massive swing to it's side that send it flying, tumbling off again. Not allowing herself to rest, she spun around towards the human only to see him pick up a hand of dirt and leaves and fling it at her.

It appeared a senseless, feeble gesture but midway the dirt turned into thorns and the leaves into green, razor sharp blades, cutting her skin at the upper body, throat and arms whilst she was shielding her eyes.

She roared, angrily, blood running from a hundred small cuts, and charged the man with all her might. Before she reached him though, something flew into her face, a bird, that started hacking at her eyeballs.

She screamed again, from pain this time, and stumbled.

She looked up only to see the man with a fist-sized rock in hand.

'If that one goes the same as before, he will smash my skull to pieces.' She realized.

"Away!" He roared at her in a bearish voice and his beast roared with him.

He gestured to throw it, but that was only to threaten her. Nagash picked herself up and ran, ran as fast as she could. Her calf ached and throbbed and branches and leaves slammed into her face. She didn't not mind. The rock came flying after her, growing larger as the leaves had before, but it missed her by the width of an hair, smashing the stem of a spruce next to her to splinters.

'Away! Away!' Was all she could think of.

She did not know for how long she had run, or how often she had forced herself not to look behind her, but when she stumbled again in the woods, scraping a knee, she had returned to the end of her beaten path. The path that would lead her back to the village.

-

"Why the fuck did you do that?!" Janna screamed at Laura.

"Why the fuck did you let her back in there?!" Laura screamed back.

She was furious, frightened, confused.

Blood was on the floor, her juices on the bed. The deed was done.

When she had awoken from her nap all had been fine but she had found the ship empty. She was about to look for Janna and the three tinies outside, when she had spotted movement on the floor.

At first she had thought it might have been Steve or Valerie but after further inspection she knew who it was. The one that got away. The one she had kept imprisoned in her panties during the night. The one she had searched desperately for, lest Janna or the three tinies see her.

A winning smile had krept upon her lips.

"Hello there, little one." She had greeted the tiny thing.

In T-shirt and panties she stood above her, a menacing sex-bomb of destruction and her undivided attention on her victim.

The woman was famished, as thin as a match and croaking for water with a raspy voice. She was much to dirty for Laura to put her into her panties again, but that didn't mean she couldn't have a little fun.

"You want water?" Laura had snickered. "How about I squish you instead?"

The wench didn't even attempt to run away and a little nudge of Laura's finger was enough to get her off her feet. Laura's plaything extended a hand, pleading.

"Sorry." Laura chuckled, half mocking, half apologising. "I ain't gonna save you either."

She felt well rested and looking for action then and the power she had over the tiny girl made her wet. Maybe she would see if she could get a few of Birsel's girls to get off, after turning the female before her into foreplay.

She moved her foot above her, producing more frantic pleas.

"Aww, don't want my big footsie to smush you?" She mocked. "Too bad!"

She had kept the girl under her bare sole only long enough to feel her trying to squirm away. Then she squished her. Tiny, weak bones collapsed under her weight, but the young, tight skin ballooned and popped, squirting out a spray of blood from under Laura's foot. She loved it.

Then she had looked at the table to look for a tissue to wipe away the evidence and her eyes had matched those of Valerie. The young pilot was standing at the entrance of the tiny spaceship watching her, mouth agape.

In that moment, everything had turned to shit.

Valerie had bolted inside the ship and Laura leapt after her.

"Oh, no you don't!" Laura had warned angrily, when she saw that the ship had somehow gotten it's power back.

She pried it open with her hands, resulting in a new loss of power, and snatched Valerie out. Elsewise, the ship had been empty, she remembered, but she did not think to ask why at the time.

"You bitch!" Valerie had screamed at her. "You fucking monser! You killed her! I saw it, I saw everything!"

Laura panicked and the hysterical screaming did only make her head spin faster. Before she knew what she was doing, Valerie was inside her panties, her screams muffled. A gentle push against the tiny pilot's body into Laura's folds and there was silence once again. Laura exhaled deeply.

Valerie wasn't a problem. Anything that could be silenced by her pussy wasn't a problem. And it felt so good.

Gently she rubbed the thrashing girl up and down her nether lips.

'That's it.' She thought. 'Now you're getting back all the abuse you screamed at me.'

A moment later she was on the bed, still rubbing. She let go.

"Stop it, you fuck! You almost smothered me to death!" Came the screams from her crotch and Laura resumed pleasuring herself.

A moan escaped her lips and she grinned. It felt so just.

After another while she let go again and took off her panties, letting Valerie bounce upon the bed.

"Anything you wanna say to me?" Laura gasped with a husky voice, her eyes, she knew, full of arousal.

She had expected more insults but instead found Valerie begging.

"Laura please!" She cried hastily. "I won't tell anything, I won't tell anyone, I swear, you can do what ever you want but don't do that to me again, please!"

"Already?" Laura raised an eyebrow, licking a juice-stained finger. "But I haven't even started treating you the way you deserve."

Valerie stared at Laura's hungry, waiting womanhood: "Please Laura, don't do this to me, I'll be good, I swear and I won't tell anything but please...not any more!"

"Oh, but my pussy wants you." Laura grinned and picked Valerie up, letting her dangle by a leg above it.

When she lowered her hand, the tiny pilot twitched and twisted in terror.

"Or should I eat you?" She asked. "Alive?"

And the screaming girl travelled up above her open maw. Her tongue came out, giving Valerie a few licks but Laura had already decided to get herself off first.

"Please, Laura!" Valerie squealed on her way down. "I'm a human being!"

"And if you want to survive, you will lick my pussy now." Laura was much too worked up to care.

She put Valerie on her fingers, gently pushing her against her clitoris but Valerie only turned and twisted in disgust. She was afraid of vaginas, Laura realized then, but she was prepared for that.

Another gasp escaped her lips as she rubbed Valerie in circles around her clit. The kicking and screaming, her unwillingness made it all even better.

Then it hit Laura: 'I'm a human being!'

This wasn't some local she had chanced upon, not one of those moronic aliens. This was a young, human woman that had enjoyed life and studied and wanted to pursue a career just like her. The day everyone had taken off on their journey, Valerie had probably been there too, probably towering over Laura like the tall girl she was.

Not now though. Now she was just a shrunken pathetic little plaything at Laura's mercy. She loved it, and a moan escaped her lips at the thought. This was the sort of vengeance she had craved.

Then she stopped herself.

"Anything you want me to tell your parents when we get home?" Laura asked, panting. "Should I tell them how I rubbed you all over my pussy before I killed you?"

Valerie's eyes widened but Laura had already resumed abusing her again before the tiny pilot could continue screaming.

She crushed her into her clitoris, dragged her up and down her folds, pushed her inside herself, keeping her there, thrashing, before fishing her back out again.

Laura's breathing became erratic as she rubbed Valerie's face over her love knob, faster and faster. She panted, laughed and moaned. Valerie was in so much terror that she would not stop fighting, squirming and thrashing.

"Oh, you're the best thing I've ever had down there." Laura moaned on her back, eyes closed, neck stretching. If that was true she couldn't tell, not in the moment. In the moment it somehow always felt like the best time so long as it was any good at all.

When she neared her climax, Laura saved Valerie from being crushed in her masturbatory zeal by throwing the girl into her mouth. Still fighting yet, the tiny pilot was sucked clean of Laura's juices, bathed in her saliva and swirled around by her tongue.

"Oh, uh, uh, yes!" Laura sighed as her back arched in orgasmic spasms.

She came right when she swallowed. The feeling of her tiny, thrashing nemesis travelling past her throat was indescribable and it didn't end there. All the way down, Valerie kicked and punched as much as she could, but to no avail. Laura had consumed her, and no amount of fighting would keep her hungry stomach from digesting her alive.

A part of her would join Laura. A part of her Laura would push out of her behind into the latrine. That thought in mind, Laura lay on the bed, digesting Valerie, enjoying the afterglow of her best orgasm yet.

And that had been the state in which Janna found her.

"What did you do?!" Janna had screamed when she saw the tiny ship torn open, the blood on the floor and Laura's nakedness.

"I had to kill her!" Laura defended herself.

"Why the fuck did you do that?!", Janna screamed.

"Why the fuck did you put her back in there?!" Laura replied, screaming as well.

Janna tore her hair in desperation.

"She saw me kill a tiny person!" Laura explained frantically.

Janna pressed her eyes together as if she was in pain and crouched down.

"Fuck." She said, raising her palm to her face covering her eyes and forehead.

"I had to do it." Laura said again, awkwardly reaching for her panties to cover herself.

"You didn't have to do it." Janna said as calmly as she could. "There would have been a million ways that didn't involve you killing her."

Laura could not deny that, so she kept silent, staring at her feet. She realized after a moment that she was only upset because Janna was.

"Is that her?" Janna pointed to the blood smear on the floor.

"No." Laura replied, trying to act ashamed. "That's the one she saw me squish. I'm sorry Janna, I panicked."

"How did you kill her?" Janna asked then, looking up.

"'Ate her." Laura's mouth twitched. "Alive."

Janna's shoulders shrugged the tiniest bit: "Doesn't matter I suppose. Your stomach will have quartered her by now. No way she's still alive."

A burp wanted to escape Laura's belly and she was having some trouble keeping it down.

"Do we have to kill Steve and Christina too?" She asked, once she had won the struggle.

Their eyes met.

"They are still in the village." Janna explained. "I found a good protector for them, I think. They are studying and everything. They are even getting used to me stepping on people. Damnit, Laura, everything was going so well!"

"Sorry." Laura muttered again. "So..."

"So everything turns to shit as soon as they learn you killed the bitch." Janna interrupted her. "How do we explain she's not here? We can't even pretend she fell off the table, thanks to you."

She crouched down with a tissue and started wiping the tavern wench off the floor.

"Wait, we could pretend that was her." Laura pointed at the blood smeared tissue. "That she got off the table and I trampled her by accident."

"Bullshit." Janna made a face, gesturing. "How would she ever get off the table?"

"Okay, that's true." Laura admitted. "Well, not unless she could fly?"

She gave a smile but her attempt to lighten mood was lost on Janna who stared at her, wide eyed.

"That's it!" Janna blurted out after a moment. "You're a genius! We gotta make Steve and Christina hate her!"

"Is that what I said?" Laura was taken aback, scratching her head.

Janna gave her a bemused look before taking the tiny spaceship off the table and walking over to the supply cases, opening one.

"What are you doing?" Laura asked, as Janna rummaged around in there, making room.

"Alright, you're obviously a dumb-ass so I will explain it to you." Janna replied cockily. "Valerie fixed the power in the spaceship much quicker than expected..."

"That part's true!" Laura fell in, happily. "I saw the lights working again when I snatched her."

Janna's smile soured a little at that, but she went on undeterred: "Then somehow she got the ship to be able to fly again and took off, leaving Steve and Chris behind."

She put the ship into the box and sealed it shut.

"What a bitch." Laura remarked. "She deserved what I did to her."

"Uhh, ya." Janna smiled awkwardly. "Did you do anything other than...eating her?"

Laura nodded and made a knowing face: "Oh yeah."

They looked at each other for a moment, before Janna ran over to her.

"Mhh, wait." Laura said in between kisses, Janna's hand already inside her moist underwear, "Should we get some of Birsel's girls?"

"No." Janna replied after brief consideration. "I want you all for myself. Let Steve and Christina have some fun alone. You just tell me exactly what you did to that fucking bitch."