Janna watched the herd of toys while Laura undressed. She already started playing. Eight soldiers there were, clinging to their spears as though they were in fact the weapons their makers designed them to be. They were less than toothpicks, splinters at best, never of any consequence to the fate of their beholders, faced with Janna's weight. She giggled when the first one compacted under her butt cheek.

Laura loved being as big as she was never more than in moments like this. The little ones begged and cowered as usual. Any attempted flight Janna put an individual but immediate end to. By now it was matter of habit that a young, fit female be used for sex, which was what Janna and Laura were anticipating. A fleeing peasant girl, therefore, was picked up gently and put back, albeit with a brief, reminding squeeze. An older, uglier or dirtier person was only fit for death, and so ripped apart or squished in between two all-powerful fingers. Some woman and her three little runts made a run and were ground to mush in Janna's mouth a moment later.

“I thought you were full.” Laura teased, wriggling out of her panties whereby exposing the yet even darker turn of events ahead.

Janna shrugged and grinned: “They're small.”

She picked up a soldier by his spear and lifted him up. Habits were hard to break, and the fool never thought to let go of it ere he was up too high to do it. So, he only clung tighter, and even tighter yet when the pink, wet cave of Janna's mouth was below him. Janna blew on him and shook him, but to no effect.

“Please don't eat me!” The man cried in tears. “Please don't eat me! Please don't eat me!”

Janna puckered her lips, sucked him off his spear and swallowed him alive. There was a learning effect because the next one she tried to take that way let go immediately and the others dropped their weapons for good.

One shouted: “We surrender!”

As if it made any difference.

“Come here then.” Janna pointed to the ground next her hip. “Just so we know.”

“We too! We surrender!” A woman squealed but Janna gave her a vicious flick with the finger when she tried to follow the men.

Then she lifted her butt off the ground, slipped half-way out of her jeans and came back down just far enough to flatten those who had just foolishly deemed themselves lucky. The realization that there was no way out of this was readable on every tiny face.

While Janna undressed, Laura started sorting.

“Old man, squish.” She mumbled smilingly while crushing an old man's head.

Women past menopause were too old to fuck, even to death. There had been fifty to sixty people in the beginning, so there were plenty to choose from and being picky over.

“You and you and you...” She shooed the ones unfit for purpose to the side.

That moment when Janna's bra came off was always glorious and must have been even more for the little people. Several hundred tons of tit flesh was not something anyone was likely to ever have seen before. Her nipples were hard and erect too, though not from cold.

Laura sorted out the last few, glad to count at least twenty females of desirable age.

“Look at me, I've got piercings.” Janna giggled suddenly.

A blonde, naked and horrified peasant girl was dangling from each of her nipples, clinging on for dear life. Janna shook her chest and made her heavy breasts sway, but not enough to shake them loose. Their nakedness reminded Laura.

“Undress.” She told the assorted playthings in a tone that brook no argument.

While they followed she went forward on her knees, uncaring of the shrieks she produced and leaned over to Janna's left mountainous breast.

“You look yummy.” She told the involuntary adornment and went to lick up from the bottom of Janna's breast until both girl and nipple were in her mouth.

“Gods!” The other one screamed when she saw what was happening, counting two and two together and contemplating the drop below.

It wasn't her turn yet. Laura filled her mouth with spit and sucked on the immensity of Janna's teat, using the little female as a prop to stimulate the nipple, round and round and no say in it at all. Janna moaned and threw back her head until Laura let go, taking the prop with her to swallow.

“Gods, no!” Cried the other one whence her turn came.

Laura gave a light burp, indicating that the first one had arrived at the grizzly destination. The taste of Janna's skin was stronger than the taste of the little female.

“Oh, God.” Janna moaned, almost in echo.

Laura checked down back in between her legs. The young girls were important, blocked from two sides in between her knees and legs on either side. The expendables, the rejects were on he right side of Laura's right knee. All were huddled together and not trying to flee for now, unwittingly allowing the moment to happen. And it was great.

It wouldn't last forever though and Laura was not willing to let anyone escape. She lifted her right leg over them to position herself and went down rear end first. The fit was neat. She wasn't sorry for the pops, cracks and squelches under her cheeks when her weight came settling. Her butt wasn't as large, nor neigh as meaty as Janna's but shapely and very firm, the product of quite some favourable genes, along with activity. Laura had enough self-awareness to know that she was lazy, but her periods of lethargy were most usually followed by adventurous activism, hiking, sight-seeing or such like.

As things stood, her behind bulldozed everything quite nicely. Her nether lips were soft, moist, swollen and sensitive. She could feel some trapped beings suffocating there, pleasing her with their squirming. It were just rejects though, no centre piece in the dirty, lustful play. The precious ones were next to her crushing but, scared stiff and looking on in terror.

Meanwhile, Janna had made a decision, laying on her back and waiting to be pleased as well. Her legs were spread, her sex open, glistening with excitement.

“Oh gods, what have we done to deserve this?” A girl lamented on the ground.

Tiny hands tried to cover tiny bodies, clinging to whatever constituted stability once. There was only one stable factor, far as Laura could see. Power. And she had all of it now, visible in the fact that all of them were naked. They could have died just the same with their clothes on, or perhaps with a shred of dignity saved.

“You're smaller than us.” She husked an unwarranted, smirking reply.

And how much smaller they were, perhaps twice as tall as just her pinkie's fingernail. The bitter emptiness on their faces didn't last very long, replaced with terror when she picked one up and dragged her across Janna's labia.

“Put her in!”

The girl was fighting for her life, already drenched in the palpable excitement of the womanhood which to please was to be her life's last purpose. The gates of hell lay at the bottom. Janna was a tight fit, though Laura's finger was slim. When she withdrew, the girl remained inside, trapped.

“Oh god!” Janna gasped. “More!”

The next one pleaded: “Please don't do th-”

Once more Laura pushed the living toy into her lover's sex. Then she looked over to Furio and Graham, checking if everything was alright. On one leg, the Mad Lioness was hopping and lashing out at the frail, little men, all the while having to stop every now and then on account of the pain her obliterated foot was giving her. Graham the map guy had found a stick but was too much of a coward to use it. The scene made Laura grin all the more.

“Mhhh!” Janna urged, her breathing heavy, lips pressed together, eyes closed.

Laura obliged, seeing the next three girls off with a smile before sacrificing them to Janna's pleasure. A fourth she placed into her mouth without a word. The poor thing thought she was being eaten and thrashed around as best as she could. If the ones in Janna behaved anything like that it explained the wreathing and gasping that the big girl had fallen into. Laura was keen to see her reaction to the next bit. The tiny girl came out, drenched in saliva but lucky to see the light of the world once more. When she saw where Laura was taking her now, she only screamed.

“Ah! Hey!” Janna's head shot upwards, looking to see.

She had never done anal, Laura knew and still had not asked before crossing the threshold. It went accordingly. The girl went into Janna's butt just up to her tiny hips before Janna clenched. Laura burst out with laughter when the girl she tried to shove in was suddenly pulled inwards and squelched as if by an industrial press that had gotten hold of an unfortunate worker.

“You crushed one with your butt hole!” She managed, almost in tears with laughter.

Half the little thing came tumbling out, and some obliterated threads of the rest.

“Fucking stop that.” Janna hissed, anxious to get off. “Just...”

A plaything managed to get out of Janna, or would have almost, because as soon as it's little form was squirming out Laura shoved it and a new one back inside.

“Are they fighting?”

“Mhm...” Janna only managed that much while being overcome with the sensations.

Beneath Laura all the rejects had been crushed to death at that point, so she took yet a good one, red-haired, pale and lanky but beautiful, and started pleasing herself with it. The dead ones she could see in the imprints of her butt cheeks were just flat; and that made her oddly proud. The lanky girl kicked and screamed and she could feel the build up of something glorious in her loins.

Initially, Laura had wanted half of the girls, but now she saw that she didn't need them. One was enough, and with the others giving was as good as getting. So, she started stuffing Janna like a turkey on thanksgiving, using two fingers instead of one and ignoring the tiny girls' pleas.

“Oh my God!” Janna started clawing and kneading her breasts with her hands.

In her vagina, the little ones fought against Laura's fingers and the slick, moist, crushing sex that engulfed them. Laura took two and dumped them in between Janna's tits where they were promptly felt, pinned and squelched by tit flesh.

The last remaining peasant girl awaited being shoved into Janna's cunt like a trooper, only Laura took her in her mouth instead and went down to do to Janna's clitoris what she had done to each of her nipples before. Sandwiched in between Laura's tongue and Janna's love-knob, the girl became just another thing, only as good as it was still able to struggle.

Laura was down on her knees and a hand, the other in between her own legs and her head down in between Janna's. Janna started screaming in ecstasy, orgasming so noisily that Laura was sure it could be heard back in stupid, old Thorwal. She didn't care. They were massive, using people as they pleased for what ever purpose they so desired. Nothing could stop them.

“Stop!” Janna yelled as if on cue, kicking. “Stop, oh!”

Laura closed her eyes and came while shoving the red-head deep into herself. She could stay there. She could die there. Laura didn't care.

Janna was panting as though she had just won a marathon and still she flinched and shook. Their little playthings were making their way out of of her. Such a grotesque display of gargantuan size.

“She's done! Let us go!” A shaking blonde pleaded with Laura's invidious grin.

She was helping others slip out of Janna, naked bodies all greased up with sex. Janna's orgasm had done for many of them it seemed, as they were being dragged out dead or half dead. One came out professing that she could not feel her legs, which was good, because they appeared to be bent at very unnatural angles. Perhaps Laura's finger had carelessly injured them as well. They were so small, so helpless, the tiny things.

“Are they all out?” Janna panted. “You didn't squish one in me, right?”

Laura couldn't have said but shook her head anyway. The red-head she had pushed deep inside herself came out as well, struggling in the direction of gravity. She landed on the earth with soft, wet sound and Laura wasted no time in sitting down directly on top of her, smothering her with her sex.

“A few are alive, I think.” Laura reported the situation between Janna's thighs.

Janna sat up, looking: “That was intense. It felt like they could have gone on forever.”

“I don't think they'd agree.”

The blonde was yet the fittest and looked up at the young, gargantuan woman she had just helped made to orgasm. Laura could only imagine how used she must have felt.

“Did you uh...” Janna's flustered look turn to Laura. “I mean, do you you want...”

“I'm good.” Laura grinned. “We don't need them any more.”

She leaned into the ground until she felt the auburn-haired girl squelch.

“Oh...good.” Janna looked back down and started petting the blond girl's head with her finger. “Thanks for that, little one.”

And without another word she stoop up, looked another time and began to trample them into the dirt.

“Ahh, yes.” She sighed happily. “I think we're done here. Where are our little friends?”

“There.” Laura pointed after a brief search.

The Mad Lioness was still hunting the two cowardly men and had somehow gotten in possession of Graham's stick, little good as it did her.

Janna shook her head and giggled at the sight: “Do you want to squish her?”

“No.” Laura fished her panties off the ground and slipped them on before moving over to put an end to the one-legged tag game.

If she had heard the Lioness' real name before, she had forgotten it. It mattered little in any case. She snatched the girl off the ground and took away the stick, grinding it to nothing in between her fingers.

“Demons!” Screeched the wench right before Laura pulled back the waistband of her panties and let her tumble inside where soon she came to rest against Laura's crotch.

“Let's see if she gets more civil after a while in there.”

“And if not?” Janna asked, wide-eyed.

'I'm gonna break this one as casually as I wear my clothes.' Laura though viciously, but shrugged and said: “She'll sleep in my sock anyway, so I guess it doesn't matter.”

She pulled the waistband up over her hips to keep the little prisoner from escaping.

“Can we move on?” Furio asked from below, impatient and notably out of breath.

Laura looked at him with disdain.

“We didn't even kiss.” Janna came from the side, pulling her away and making up for it.

It was true, they hadn't, and it had all been over rather quickly. A quickie, that's what it had been, and sixty little people had perished for it. There was a huge dent in the ground where Janna and Laura had sat and where Janna had lain. The earth was ripped open were Janna had clawed it in ecstasy. It looked like a battlefield, albeit with fewer bodies than before, up in Thorwal where they had crushed thousands of people at several locations.

Nostrians would know of this place, the holdfast, the village and all that, so Janna and Laura took a minute to trample everything some more and agreed upon telling the lie that they had been attacked by the local lord and his people. This, they agreed, had prompted them to misjudge the situation and thus led to an ad hoc decision to pancake the whole lot and move on. Janna termed the practise as the 'oops-redemption' and it wasn't the first time they used it.

That prompted some jokes for the way forward.

“Your honour, this giant cunt squished my wife and all of my children just for fun! Defendant, what say you? Oops, your honour! The defendant is hereby excused and found not guilty! Now may she please turn around and sit on the court before she goes.”

“Do you think anyone ever enjoyed what we did to them?” Laura asked with a glance to the side.

Janna frowned and shook her head in bewilderment: “What an absurd idea.”

Laura looked forward again, solemn: “Sometimes I can't sleep, thinking about all the horrible things I've done to them.”

Janna looked over, concern fogging the joy on her still flushed face.

Then Laura chuckled: “Picture me awake at night, grinning.”

Janna broke out in laughter, stumbling forward and smashing some roadside trees with her feet. And the trees screamed, only it wasn't the trees but little armed men and women that came pouring out once more.

“Thorwalsh.” Janna observed in joyful astonishment. “The morons went back to the road.”

There were more than two dozen but no more than thirty, far as Laura could see. They had hid in the brush, in the small collection of trees and apparently in some sort of ditch that was there. Now they came pouring out, running every which way at once, easily identifiable by their larger size and Viking-styled attire.

Janna wasted no time and turned people into porridge once more, laughing as she did so. Laura had felt the twitching of the annoying little priestess in her panties but was uninterested sexually for now. That didn't mean that she had lost her taste for stomping people however, and so she hurried to join in, dancing and trampling the fleeing men and women into the ground.

“We should torture some, to ask for that gay paedophile.” She nonetheless reminded Janna between stomps.

But Janna shrugged and shook her head: “Who gives a shit.”

And so the Thorwalsh that had besieged that now flattened holdfast were crushed like roaches in the street. Three tried to swim the Ingval but Janna crouched, picked them up and devoured them.

“Was Hjalmar Boyfucker among them?” Furio asked feverishly when they were done.

The whole thing had taken less than twenty seconds.

Janna bent, extending her hand towards the ground where a group of four had been squelched under her sole. They were pinkish or skin-coloured mush in flattened clothing now though.

“I don't know what he looks like. Can you recognize him?” She asked innocently.

The tiny, powerless wizard got the hint and told her to move on.

-

Stucco often adorned the walls and ceilings of Horasian halls, palaces, villas and bourgeois mansions. It was made from chalk, gypsum, sand and water, or else sometimes it was just cast and moulded from cement. Furio thought it queer that his mind would make him think of it now. Perhaps, he reasoned, it was because it displayed such fragility, reminding him that his own land could be crushed as easily underfoot as this one.

Perhaps though it was to show him the contrast. Nostria was far behind and the best it could boast was stone masonry. That might have meant that Horas could not fall so easily, that he was not committing a foolish mistake. But fool or no, he had orders that he must fulfil. Farmsteads beside the road below were burned and destroyed, just as was to be expected. In one place, three peasant survivors had begun to start a new life on the ashes. They must have been away, or else quick enough to escape when the Thorwalsh burned them out.

They were not quick enough now though, and Janna swayed her path slightly to roll over them like doom, never breaking her stride.

“Thorwalsh collaborators.” She explained without question, fixing Furio with an indifferent gaze. “Why else would they be still alive?”

'Have been still alive.' Furio thought, but that was as much objection as he could muster on behalf of the Nostrians.

To begin with, he did not have much left in the way of compassion after all that he went through, and for the Nostrians even less. He disliked their king and their lords and yearned for the stern, rational leadership of General Scalia. Surely, Scalia would not care for some squashed Nostrian peasants either, and neither would King Andarion the Second.

They left the river and followed the road north east. There were more farmsteads and some inns too, all in ruinous state. They passed a burned out holdfast, a small drum tower this one, with blackened gates that still showed signs of the axes which had smashed them down. This part of Nostria had clearly been hit hardest by the Thorwalsh incursion. It was easily accessible and close to Thorwal still.

It was straining and he was tired of travel all over again but Furio found that if he concentrated on the ground he would not get sick so easily. And it was important to keep an eye out. Making drowsy as they had often turned the giantesses inhospitable towards Graham and him. They were rougher, less concerned, and if per chance a Horasian supply caravan or patrol would emerge Janna and Laura would need some reminder to not trample them into the dirt as they trampled everything else now, including farms that had not been burned but been abandoned.

“Master, what will happen when we reach our glorious army?” Graham, often so eerily silent, asked suddenly through the paralysed, hanging side of his face.

Furio considered.

“His royal magnificence's army, you mean, lad.” He finally corrected. Public ownership of such things as the armed forces was a modern, popular idea, and dangerous all together. “I do not know if there will be a way for you to go home. You are a civilian without station, I do fear.”

He frowned apologetically and went on: “It was my mistake, lad. I should have offered you to join with General Lee and have him give you sufficient coin to buy passage on a ship.”

To his surprise, Graham replied by chewing his half-way hanging lip.

“And if I wanted to continue on with you, master?” He asked hesitantly. “Since your magic seems to have stopped working, it appears you must be a scholar. I like your writings, and I'd like to make some myself.”

“Oh?” Furio turned, very pleased with this indeed. The lad made a fine student. He had even mentioned that somewhere in script.

“A book about suffering, I think.” The lad went on. “Entering a world and seeing universal suffering.”

“Ah, there is not that much suffering yet.” Furio allowed with a smile. “It is just that we are always close to it, up here.”

“As if we took it along with us.” Graham added thoughtfully.

“Suffering is carrying you on her hands, you cute little munchkins.”

Janna's comment interrupted their pleasurable togetherness where for a wonderful moment it had seemed like it was only just the two of them.

Laura inquired as to what they were talking about and Janna chucked: “Suffering.”

Then the giantesses had their cruel laughs.

Furio ignored them: “That sounds Maraskan, almost, lad. And I can think of one or two of Hesinde's servants who had that same notion before you.”

Graham stiffened and looked disgruntled by that and Furio felt that it was his duty to give him hope.

“Best write of what you have seen and experienced and stick to what you know.” He advised. “One thing you can do, a thing that many scholars cannot, is to make your own colourations. Thus, your writing must not be all too perfect. The pictures will speak for you.”

“A picture speaks more than a thousand words.” Remarked Janna from above, much more charming this time.

Graham's eyes were shining and he went through the stacks of paper to marvel at his work thus far.

“I wish we could work while on the move.” He gritted his teeth at the shaking of Janna's gargantuan hand.

Furio smiled: “There must be struck a balance. You need stillness to work, aye, but if you spent the day in stillness would you ever see anything worth writing about, or drawing? Best rest now and work whenever you can.”

“A candle, perhaps, Master, or a lantern, for the nights in which we...?”

“Village!” Laura exclaimed suddenly, already hopping forwards no doubt in anticipation of the helpless souls she would get to extinguish beneath her feet.

“Oldhagen, Master. It must be.” Graham informed.

There were people, Furio saw immediately, and the flatfish banner was flying. That was queer for a village and it indicated king's men about. Janna must have seen that too and called out to Laura in their queer tongue, stopping the living flesh grinders that were her feet.

A motte and bailey castle, framed in palisade stood behind the village on a hill, smouldering in ruins. The village had some fortifications of it's own, a tower and some walls, stake ditch and fence, but looked still intact. Arrows had feathered some areas here and there and bodies were lying around at entrances.

“Let's get closer and see what this is about.” Said Janna.

Her mood had changed for now it seemed while Laura's was still geared toward murder.

“Let's just smash them.”

It would be all too easy, of course. By it's size the village held little more than five hundred souls, far fewer than Janna or Laura were able to annihilate at any given time.

“This place looks more recognizable.” Janna objected. “There's nothing wrong with squishing the odd bugger by the road, but this is still Nostria and we can't always just crush everybody.”

She was edging closer cautiously, which still meant fairly quickly, given her size. And as so many times before, as the giantesses approached, a horn was blown and fighters scrambled to meet them.

'If men could fly they would not fall victim so easily.' Furio thought queerly.

There was a force of longbow and two ranks of spears to protect them but no knight on a horse in sight.

“Let me talk to them.” Furio told Janna. “Perhaps they know where to find the Generalissimo.”

Back on his own feet he suddenly felt much smaller and the muscles in his legs seemed to protest the agonizingly slow pace. Up in Janna's hand one was able to move so quickly that one could observe several wholly different parts of the world in a single day. But alas this was his size and the short, minuscule legs he was born with.

'To think that I felt tall once, among men.'

“Lad, a pipe, if you please.”

Graham began stuffing on the walk.

“Lower 'em bows!” A sergeant called out when they approached, the pipe smoking happily and Furio already much more content.

The man was short but broad of shoulder, helmetless, bald and otherwise clad in surcoat and mail. He did not carry a shield but from his belt dangled on a hook some monstrous, shiny cleaver of the military variety. The corpses around were smelling, some Nostrian and some clearly Thorwalsh.

The sergeant looked from Furio to Graham and back: “You're that wizard feller, him with the giants. Heard all about you. What you want?”

If one hadn't been missing he would have had two very prominent front teeth.

“We mean you no harm, Sir.” Furio allowed. “As we are travelling to the Andergastian border we happened upon your village and wanted to inquire as to whether you knew where to find our great General Scalia of the Horasian army.”

He felt it was a good thing to say. This was a hard man and seemed to be not a bad one. He and and his soldiers had clearly been defending the village against the raiders; and successfully so, which was more than many others could boast.

“Him 's at Joborn.” The sergeant replied flatly, much to Furio's surprise. He hadn't really expected the man to know.

“How come you know?”

“Smart wizard, are ye. Didn't you just ask it of me? T'was the ogre attack a few days past. Walked straight through the river north of old Jo and gutted a folly of your friends. What's it with them giants and Thorwalsh 'tacking at the same time? Didn't think them lot shared blood, but who knows.”

He spat onto the ground while Furio puffed on his pipe, trying to decide whether or not he had just heard anything important.

“Anyhow,” The sergeant pointed impatiently, “Joborn's that way. They call it the trample path, heard that's what 'em creatures 'o yours love to do so much. But there's no tramplin' in this place. Stay well away. We been sent here to defend this village, and that's what we'll do.”

Furio felt trespassed against by the suspicion, be it utterly justified or not: “We happened upon a troop of Thorwalsh on the road and they got, uh...well trampled as well.”

“Ah, there's more of 'em lurking abouts, have no fear.” The man dismissed him. “We're havin' us a fine ol' time here without you. Eh, lads?!”

The spears and bows remained silent as stone, looking grimly at Janna and Laura in the distance. One word from Furio and all of them would be smears, but that would be wrong. He sensed that this sergeant was exactly the kind of man Nostria needed more of.

“What happened to the castle?” Furio asked when he had already turned to go.

The short, barrel-chested man spat on the ground again.

“Thorwallers burned it the night before the first charge. Keep the peasants from barring up in there, see?” Then he chuckled. “Little good it did 'em. Some of 'em farmhands is a hard lot. Drove 'em off with pitchforks. Now them farmhands is under arms in some other place, and we 's here in theirs”

Furio nodded thoughtfully while the other gave him a weighing stare.

“If you follow the trample path, you'll happen by Mirdin.” The sergeant added. “My daughter married the inn-keep's son, young fool. No doubt got himself killed by now. If she still lives, would you get her to Joborn save?”

“That would not be wise.” Furio replied after tellingly short consideration.

In all likelihood the giantesses would grow bored with the girl and abuse her in one way or another and ultimately crush or eat her.

“Mh.” The sergeant muttered but the look they exchanged in parting made Furio feel obliged to try and prevent Mirdin from ending up underfoot in any case, if it still existed.

They came upon it less than an hour after moving on, showing how small the world must be to Janna and Laura. The land was hills and valleys but that mattered equally little to the gargantuan girls. Thankfully, a “these are good people” had been enough to convince Janna not to let Laura pulverize Oldhagen for sport. Of Mirdin, there was little left that could have been pulverized. It was all burned cinders and ash.

The situation was the reverse of Oldhagen, in fact. Amazingly, there was a castle here too and it still stood proud and occupied, the refuge of the villagers who had taken up bows and spears from the armoury and rushed onto the walls to see the new threat now. The reason why it was still there should serve as a lesson to castle builders. It was made of huge, imperishable stone blocks and was situated atop a cliff of rock with only one narrow, stony way up. Mighty round drum towers framed it in every one of it's four corners, providing plenty of opportunity to feather any oncoming enemy with arrows.

Furio did not know what the motte and bailey had been. Perhaps it was just another holdfast, or some lords secondary seat or something of that nature. This place was something else, a primary seat for certain and without a doubt older than most people around. Nobody ever built such a fortification for the sake of peasants, while nonetheless they benefited from it's being there.

“We're bypassing this place I guess, Furio?” Janna asked when she had assessed the situation.

Looking into the village, he could clearly make out what had been the inn.

He decided against sober judgement: “Take me close. Just walk by so I can shout to them.”

Janna obliged while Laura was walking ahead, first towards the village so maybe she could step on something there but then around it perhaps so she would not get her feet caked in ashes. It occurred to Furio that she had simply overlooked the castle altogether.

“Arrows!” Someone shouted on the walls and shaking, unsteady hands reached into their quivers.

“Do not loose!” Furio shouted back. “We come in peace!”

Janna stopped for a moment: “If I take one of your flimsy little arrows I swear I will make this castle my seat.”

Furio wondered whether she had made the wordplay intentionally, but in the end that mattered little. Large and imposing as it was, the fortress would still roughly fit beneath Janna's rump and was nowhere near strong enough to withstand her. Had she not been so terrifyingly huge, one would have said of Janna that she had good childbearing hips and the buttocks of a crafty washerwoman. Furio had already seen sufficiently of what it did to men and the structures they inhabited.

“Stay your hands!”

A noble emerged on the crenels, young, tall and fair by the looks of him, clad in mail and with a mop of thick black hair, a blue cape around his young, strapping shoulders.

“Is it you, the mage with the monsters?” He called.

The castle was situated so high that it was just ten meters below Furio's station on Janna's hand.

“Aye, it is me! We mean you no harm!”

“Go away then!” The youth called back.

Furio pressed his lips together and gathered strength to make the strange request his heart told him he must make.

“We have not come for you, young lord.” He shouted while Janna was still moving closer.

Arrows couldn't harm her in truth and if any fool loosed a shaft at her she would have a perhaps convenient excuse to make use of her magnificent buttocks. That would mean the inevitable flattening of the good sergeant's daughter though, if she was still alive and had found refuge here.

“We are looking for the wife of the inn-keep's son. Is she here, and well?”

By now he could see the expression on the young man's face. He couldn't be older than fifteen and was looking baffled and afraid. He looked at the men brandishing bows on the wall-walks, saying nothing for a time.

“Inkeep died!” Some rough voice announced somewhere eventually. “Son's off with milord, huntin' raiders!”

“And what of his wife?!” Furio tried his luck once more.

Much as he couldn't see who had spoken he was equally aware that someone might launch an unsuspected arrow. As close as they were by now it might well hit him or Graham too and that would be a mess since he did not have magic to fix that now.

“I saw her!” Someone else answered from further below where the spearmen stood.

“What does she stand accused of?” The young noble demanded to know. “I warn you, wizard! Have know that in my father's lands no crime, no punishment without law, long as I hold his seat in his absence!”

Furio almost smiled by the defiant way the young lord juggled that dangerous idea, knowing that it would be discarded at the first pressure from the king, or else at the next best convenience.

“That is a very smart principle, little man.” Janna acknowledged however, utterly out of the blue.

'And what crimes did the ones commit which you subjected to your weight, your belly or your...parts?' Furio thought despairingly.

Apparently, to Janna, crossing her path was an offence warranting capital punishment. It wasn't of course. She was just a hypocrite, albeit one with the power over life and death. In his writings he couldn't mention this similarity to a corrupt lord, though he found it one of the mos striking aspects of her.

“She is not accused!” He announced to the young lad who had almost fallen to his death when the female behemoth had addressed him so suddenly. “We wish only to bring words of greeting!”

Once again terror and puzzlement mixed almost comically on that smooth, noble face, but Furio was about done with him.

“My lady!” He charmed when an equally puzzled and terrified woman in beer-stained apron and dress was brought forth by a spearman clenching her tender arm. “Are you the daughter of the deceased inn-keep's son?”

“A...aye, m-...milord!”

Her voice was shaking and she seemed not to be able to decide whether to bow or to curtsy, the movement ending up as some grotesque waddle. Cute, in fact. She did not share the thick arms or barrel chest of her father, only his prominent front teeth of which she had still both in her mouth.

“I am sorry to terrify you, sweetling! My purpose is only to see that you are safe, a duty hereby entrusted onto your young lord, and to give word of your father, the sergeant who holds Oldhagen against the Thorwalsh with unquestionable loyalty and knightly valour!”

The last part was a sweet morsel that had entered his mind just then. Nostria had new knights to make to replace the dead ones and if anybody why not that good sergeant. He was a rough piece of cloth to be sure, but this was no land for silks.

“Th...thank you, m...milord!” The girl was in tears.

They might have been on account of terror, faced with Janna's crushing immensity, but Furio liked to think that at least part of them were of joy.

-

Dari could never have imagined that things would turn out so well as she swirled the wine in her cup. It was cat piss and completely overpriced, but she didn't mind. She had come a long way to get here, the Alderman's Cellar, one of the best wine inns in the city of Andergast.

Lord Kraxl, the idiot, the coward, the future king, had cast his unused sword into the dirt before Varg the Impaler's feet. That had set everything in motion. The Lord had been in command at Lauraville after Edorian Zornbold's injury and subsequent death and he had been the one who rode out to meet the army of ogres and negotiate.

Like a fool, Dari had tried to hide in the village but the ogres decided to turn it upside down and make slaves of the villagers and soldiers.

“Don't, I'm still inside!” She had screamed like a little girl when the massive ogress Trundle meant to flatten the shed that was her hiding place.

Trundle wasn't as tall as Nagash had been but was strong and muscled and easily more of a monster. She was younger, so maybe that was why, looking like an early developed sixteen year old gal with that sort of vague appeal that some peasant girls had. Her hair grew from her head like wet straw, giving hint of what was inside and her eyes were as blue and cold as ice. However much she looked the peasant did she act like a spoiled lordling's daughter, every bit as selfish, reckless and cruel as that.

Before coming to the shed Dari had seen her chase a young spearman out of a haystack.

Her eyes gleamed with malice when she tripped him with her foot. Then she moved over him while he crawled. She couldn't have weighed more than Nagash but she sure looked heavy with her womanly figure, broad hips and all that. Her breasts were fleshy and pale but grew conically, like they weren't fully done growing yet. To the little guy that mattered preciously little. She laughed as her naked rear end pounded his puny form into the ground, young breasts bouncing merrily. He was still breathing when she got up the first time but after that she repeated the process over and over until all his bones were smashed and what was left of him was so deep in the ground beneath her arse that Dari couldn't see it any more.

Trundle showed her the result though, after the reveal, stating: “I like smashing you little things.”

Then she had pushed Dari to the ground and proceeded to sit on her.

Nagash had cracked some of Dari's ribs while abusing her, just before the Andergastian army conquered Lauraville. Xardas, the wizard, had later healed that with a touch of his hand, but since his death and all that had transpired, back on that fateful hill, Dari had felt the pain return every now and then.

Trundle would have done more than crack a few ribs however. She would have sat on Dari like on a pillow and flattened her just like that unlucky soldier; and all just for fun too. Alas, Dari, the accomplished assassin, was spared the pointless squelching by a teenaged, ogrish behind.

“Halt, she's important!”

Boom, Trundle had sat down anyway and Dari's world went dark. That huge sadist's arse had human bite marks on it, other people who had met their end there.

“What's she important for, you worm?” The ogress' voice vibrated through her body while Dari was fighting for breath, feeling her very bones bend, moments from snapping.

The collapse of her ribcage was prevented by doubt, sown by the stranger's words. Trundle was holding back, steadying her weight with her hands.

“She is.” Dari could barely hear his voice. “Get off her, perhaps she's not broken yet. Don't make me tell Varg about this.”

Light flooded Dari's eyes and she could breathe again.

“She'd be squelched if I had used my whole weight.”

Pouting, Trundle stomped off, right through the hut in which Dari had been hiding. The man who had saved her was not called Sir Egon, nor was he anywhere as handsome as that. He was short, dressed in travel-stained blacks, balding and had a pointy snout like some grossly enlarged rat. But Dari could have kissed him anyway.

The same man, Sly, was sitting opposite her now drinking the same cheap wine for the same expensive price.

“I welcome the respite,” he grinned in the way that had no doubt earned him his name, “but we should have chosen a grubbier tavern.”

“I don't think so.” Dari saluted him and drank. “I bought a much too expensive dress to go anywhere else.”

She laughed light-headedly. It had been long since she'd last enjoyed wine.

“I should have bought some velvets.” He lamented, tugging at his old, used up garb. “I look like the brigand I am. We're drawing eyes.”

“A rich brigand and an expensive courtesan.” She winked. “Besides, they're all robbers in this city.”

“I have seen the price of bread.” He frowned into his cup. “So many mouths. Varg will bend it straight.”

“By putting food into them or reducing their number of mouths?”

Sly chuckled: “Both, like as not. But Varg knows that every hand can plough a field or hold a hammer and that every cock and cunny will make new hands. She's not like to squash the foundation of her own power, no matter how much her ogresses love killing.”

“Let them kill the old and useless ones.” Dari suggested in turn. “They're...well...”

She chuckled but Sly shook his pointy face: “It's not like that. The old ones are keeping it all together. Auntie's childbearing days might be over but her idiot daughter is having litter after litter and would drown herself and all of them in the river if not for her mother's care. Her son, the builder who can lift twice his own weight would get himself squashed by a collapsing wall if his gouty old man wouldn't put up the string for him so he can build straight.”

“Phex!” Dari leaned back in her chair and grinned.

Sly was an exceedingly smart man. This whole thing had been his idea to begin with. The army of ogres was not yet arrived, lumbering on through the forest with all their slaves and possessions but Dari, Sly and a lizard-skin wearing sellsword named Brock had ridden forth to the city. Sly had known that the gates were barred before they arrived, so they had brought climbing equipment and scaled the walls in the night. It was a laugher.

After assessing the city's strength, Brock had climbed back out to report to Varg. Dari and Sly remained to deal with the queen if she refused to negotiate. The city had to be taken without fighting, too valuable as one of the last spots in the kingdom not in ruins.

The Impaler had not been happy about that at all, but Sly had convinced her. If truth be told, Dari didn't know if it was really prudent or if he just wanted some time off. It mattered little to her in any case. She was back in the saddle. Just like Diego, Sly had recognized her from that former job where they had worked together. The ogres didn't touch him or his associates and they had Steve and Christina as their hostages to ward against Laura and Janna. Well, Varg had them, in truth, but that was as good as it was ever going to get. Seen from that vantage point, Dari was saver now than she probably could have been in Gareth. Janna and Laura still loomed as a threat, but hadn't shown their gigantic faces in a while.

“More wine!” She snapped her fingers at a serving girl.

One had to pay up front in these dire times, and so she produced a piece of silver from her pocket and placed it on the table with a resounding tat. Money didn't smell, and as long as one paid there were always welcoming embraces everywhere.

“At once.” The shy girl hurried away with the money.

“What do you think Trundle would do to one like her?”

“Squash her with her rear, like she meant to do you.” Sly shrugged. “Varg would shove a stake up her arse and watch her die. The Skinners would pull off her hide, rub her wreathing body in salt and char her over a fire till it was crisp and black. Then they'd eat her. Weepke would cleave her in two for practise and Gundula Maidenstomper doesn't carry that name by accident. Some would have the poor thing pleasure them first, but that don't make the grease fat now, does it.”

Dari would have made an excellent sex slave but the days when bigger women could just use her like that were over.

“Bergatroll had a penchant for girls like that.” She said. “It was a good thing Varg beheaded her.”

Bergatroll had been Nagash's mother and terribly wroth over her death. When Varg told her that she wouldn't get to squash anyone in revenge, she started rampaging and attacked the Impaler outright. Varg wore armour though and carried an enormous weapon.

“Yes, that was a good thing.” Sly agreed. “Those goat and sheep will go a long way in feeding this city. We couldn't have hoped for better.”

“What became of Lord Mannelig, her husband?”

With all these new developments, Dari couldn't possibly keep track of everything. Sly could somehow, but not she, and she didn't really care either. It was all behind.

The raider shrugged again: “He wasn't in very good shape after his wife dragged him along on a foot chain. Loved her still though, that weird man. With his tears not even dry Varg had him marry some lower giantess and they consummated that very night. She crushed him, she says by accident.”

“Oh.” Dari made, not caring at all.

The common room was a pleasant place, nicely decorated with a tapestry depicting some knight's heroic fight against druids, ogres and dragons. There were some wood carvings depicting peasants tolling fields and some items of religious nature.

“And so we ended up in possession of all those goat and sheep. Suddenly I feel hungry for some mutton, what do you think?”

“I'm stuffed like a goose.” She waved off at the platters of picked bones between them.

Sly had had roasted chicken with a side of beets and buttered bread. Dari had eaten honeyed suckling pig, pumpkin soup, onions and mushrooms. It was enormously expensive but they had taken lots of gold in case there needed to be bribes. So far they had only used the money on themselves and they would have to buy people out of their rooms later. The city was packed with people from every corner of the kingdom fleeing raiders and ogres and the two gargantuan behemoths that were Janna and Laura.

About the latter two, interesting rumours had developed. They were said to have gigantic tentacles, anywhere between two and thirteen. Others swore they were as beautiful as gods while still others swore that they were gods either from the pantheon of the Twelve or from some other superstition. They were all wrong, but what most got right by now was a development of language.

Before all this madness the terms giant an ogre used to be used interchangeably whereas now giants was most commonly relied upon to mean Janna and Laura and ogre to mean Varg and her equally horrifying lot.

“Between giants and ogres.” Was an expression Dari had overheard a grey-bearded mercantile man utter when they had entered the Alderman's Cellar.

The wine came in a half-filled jug but Dari poured immediately without complaint.

“You think we'll make it?” She asked, raising her cup.

“With you on our side, how could we not?” His smile again. “You did brilliantly on the walls.”

She frowned insecurely: “That over the wall thing was a breeze.”

“That...” He stopped and set down his cup, looking incredulous for a moment. “Do you think everyone can climb like a squirrel and murder two guards without ever making a sound?”

Then she smiled, flattered.

Dari had been the first up, climbing rotten stones and gaps in the crumbling mortar, before tying a rope to a half trustworthy crenel and throwing the other end down for Sly and Brock. When an archer came patrolling by, whistling some song, she had hidden behind a barrel of pitch by an arrow stash and rammed her blade down his throat as soon as he passed her. Then she threw down the corpse so the men could hide it. A short while after that, Brock already on the rope, a spearman with a torch came wondering about the thump he had heard and Dari threw her dagger through his eye from twenty yards away. Sly had given her a good dagger that she kept concealed beneath her dress in a sheath tied just above her right knee now.

“To Andergast.” She proposed, raising her cup a little higher.

“And to us.” Sly's met hers. “We're made.”

Finally they drank together.

“Did you know we infiltrated the Horasian scouts?” He grinned.

“Really?” She asked, intrigued. “What for?”

“Well, to keep them from interrupting our plans.” He explained, leaning back in his chair. “They think we're sitting right across from them at Joborn, waiting for the right moment to attack. So, they sit there and wait for us in turn, never thinking of coming to us. It was easy enough. They rely too much on Nostrians and Andergastian traitors for their scouting. Their spy network is damn near impenetrable though.”

Dari refilled their cups on the table: “And what do we do if they find out they've been fooled after this city falls? What if they decide to attack?”

Sly laughed and smirked so much that he almost seemed to cry: “Ah, Horas is about to find itself in a whole lot of other trouble. The giantesses that kept you prisoner? The fools have allied with them.”

So that was where Janna and Laura had been all that time, Dari thought. She wasn't sure how that was a good thing though, other than facilitating her ultimate escape from them. Horas was Varg's most immediate threat at the moment.

“Supposedly, they sent them to their eternal enemies of Thorwal, settling some old debts.” Sly went on to explain, answering nothing.

“Crushing some things flat, you mean.” She commented dryly. “Are they back yet?”

It was hard to picture. Thorwalsh had always seemed huge to Dari, tiny even among men as she was, and they were so upright, proud and fierce. Janna and Laura were a lot larger than them, however.

Sly seemed unconcerned: “None that I heard of, but word does not travel all that far, so they might be.”

He turned his wine cup on the table, still grinning as though he had received a gift.

Dari was still at a loss: “What makes you so happy about this? I told you, yes, they cared about Steve and Christina quite a lot, but if they somehow change their minds in that regard, what stops them from coming here and ending this war with their feet? Janna could squash Varg just by sitting on her, just like Trundle would have squashed me if you hadn't come.”

“Varg anticipates that.” Sly shrugged amicably. “They are a threat, aye, but with the hostages and the ogres they are a greater threat to everyone else. The ogresses have made weapons and armour, as you saw, and they are numerous enough to fight them if need be.”

Back when Nagash had been alive, Dari had noted that a person was about as tall to an ogress as an ogress was to Laura and Janna, so that part might have been true. Still...

“Horas is our enemy.” She protested. “You said they were our biggest threat. I would have said second biggest but that doesn't matter any more, seeing as our biggest and second biggest threats have combined!”

“Gareth is a threat too.” He smirked reminiscently. “The largest empire in the world? And don't forget Thorwal, provided there is anything left of it to threaten us. The Thorwalsh were the only ones to answer Andergasts call for help thus far.”

She couldn't really decide whether or not he was mocking her. It seemed unlike him. Despite his criminal profession, Sly was a very friendly man, open, trusting and kind, especially to Dari.

“We've got the hetman's son in any case.” She said. “That's like a prince or close enough. And we have the Horasian nobleman Léon Logue, although no one seems to know what worth the man has in the end. Is that why you think we're safe?”

“I heard a story that suggests the hetman's son is worthless now.” Sly frowned, still happily. “Maybe we should keep him anyway. Ever heard of Hjalmar Boyfucker?”

Dari had not and did not know if she should be concerned about any of that either. Thorsten was an oaf, it was Léon who frightened her, if anything, but that was all pushed aside now. Now she only wanted to understand about their current situation and no further distractions.

“Sly, stop the games. What am I missing?”

The brigand leaned forward, folding his arms on the table: “This alliance is best thing that could have happened. We people might be small in this new world, but we are many, and like bugs we crawl every which way.”

“Stop being cryptic for one damned time and tell me what you mean.”

“The world's going to be outraged.” Sly smiled. “Who would ally with such monsters, and to what end? The Horasian nobility will see the immorality in this and start to question their empire's integrity. Gareth will see us as a threat, oh, aye, but see there, cross those lands, an even bigger threat emerges. Suddenly, Varg looks like so much less; and so much more! She wants Andergast. Who ever really wants Andergast? Gareth doesn't, or else it would be part of the empire rather than this shithole of a protectorate.”

Dari started chewing on her finger. It wasn't all that complicated after all.

“So, you think the eagle and the griffin will be at each other's throats and just forget about us?”

“I'm not a poetic man,” He laughed, “but seems to me while those two fight up high in the air there's little inclination to go look for acorns. But Gareth might end up needing us yet. Once, the mages might have been their best hope against the giantesses, but that went all belly up when there stopped to be magic. Now Varg might well hold the best way to deal with those giant behemoths, but she's not going to solve the problems of others just from the kindness of her heart?”

“That's bloody brilliant.” Dari acknowledged in awe.

-

Laura wore her tunic tied to a knot in front of her chest, exposing the flat, sleek shape of her belly. She looked a little like a Novadi dancer that way. In that very belly were the people she had just eaten, some crushed to pulp by her teeth and others swallowed alive between them. Janna's belly contained people too but if there was anyone alive and screaming in there Furio couldn't hear it. It gurgled every once in a while as the gargantuan woman's digestion worked, but that was that.

There had been two more villages on the trample path both burned out and empty, and no hollow-eyed souls sticking around. But Laura had turned up travellers by the wayside, chased them like a child in the streets and then squashed them when she got bored. They didn't look important, meaning they looked poor, and so no consequences were to fear. No one important was around to see the thing either; or if there was, that someone had not been spotted or revealed themselves.

Next, Janna had found an intact orchard. To Furio it had been easily identifiable by the much shorter trees and the order in which they grew but to the gargantuan killing machine that carried him it had been just something funny looking to step on.

When the people that had hidden there came pouring out she called Laura and began to trap them, depositing Furio and Graham on the ground so she could use both hands. Here, the same principle applied. They looked like peasants and so, once discovered, their lives were forfeit.

“I felt like having a bite, just now.” Janna had them know before she started eating them.

And so the two little men watched as the giantesses stuffed the people they were supposed to be allies of into their mouths and devoured them. Janna and Laura made a race of it because there weren't quite enough scrawny peasants for a full meal. They shoved each other and giggled girlishly before going through the orchard and uprooting every one of the apple trees in the process, uncovering someone here, someone there.

Before, Furio had told Janna at her request about that business with the sergeant and his daughter, and she had replied that it was a sweet tale and that he had done good. The fact that there might have been equally good folk among the ones she was chewing in her mouth didn't seem to bother her in the least. And what was done was done. Furio and Graham gathered what apples they found in acceptable shape before Janna took them into her hand again.

Furio was anxious for his arrival at Joborn. On the other hand, there were Horasians there and Janna and Laura had shown no murderousness towards them. There was that incident a while ago when Janna had made the wagoners disappear but that had been a special case. She had been told to get rid of them to keep all this a secret, though that seemed to have been of little use now. The mage was under no illusion however. Horasians would crush just as easily under the giant girls' feet or dissolve in their guts as the countless Nostrians and Thorwallers had.

'Stucco.'

Only then came the vivid memory of Janna trampling imperial soldiers on the day that Furio had first met her.

Then the city was insight and his first impulse was to ask Janna to set him down and wait there. There were farms, dotting the landscape and growing more frequent in appearance closer to Joborn. Those farms would be still largely in tact because of their proximity to the power centre, and protection meant living people and thereby targets for Laura's and Janna's various appetites.

By then it was evening however, and the way would take him and Graham perilously long on their own. Also, he sensed that Laura was curious about the place and would go there anyway, no matter what anyone said. And if one said something that angered her, she'd step on people just out of spite alone.

It was no use with these gigantically grown children. Their moods were like wind and Furio had to go wherever they took him. That wasn't a new realization though, and he suddenly remembered having found a way around it before.

He said: “There will be more farms with people, but it is well within sight of the city.”

That was all and the giantesses were smart enough to figure out the rest for themselves. In doing so, he had not prescribed any course of action and anything that happened would be their responsibility. And it worked. With the poor people of that orchard still passing through their digestion, the mountainous mass murderers behaved like little kittens; albeit just as curious which scared the locals a little more than was necessary.

“Hey ho!” Laura chirped at a young family hurrying into their barn.

The giantesses were visible from far off though and so most people were spared their false courtesies. Nonetheless; some people ran like mad from the wagon they had tried to get unstuck from the muddy path and Janna bent to get it done in their absence. No sooner had she given she vehicle a gentle push with her finger did the donkey on the other end tear itself loose and gallop off as best as it could, hee-hawing all the while.

Laura was already ahead, crouching over a plough abandoned by operator and draft animal both. She took it nimbly in between her fingers and proceeded to plough the field on her own power, which was of course more than a little too equal to the task. She ended up breaking the plough and losing interest, at which point she turned and unwittingly squashed the terrified donkey under her foot.

The guilt on her face vanished as soon as she discovered that it wasn't a person, stuck to the bottom of her sole, and Furio doubted that she would have felt guilty for long in any case. They arrived close enough to Joborn with only the one, four-legged casualty, which was still a formidable résumé as far as he was concerned.

“That's rather small.” Laura observed, looking down.

So it looked indeed from on high. It grew somewhat when Janna set him down but even though it had good walls, towers and all that, Joborn could not have housed more than little over a thousand in peacetime. It was quite overflowing now with survivors of the Thorwalsh incursion though and there was many a green surcoat to be seen as well, indicating Horasian men at arms. Over the gate, three banners: white flatfish on blue for Nostria, golden eagle on green for Horas, and red stag beetle on white for the city itself.

'A flatfish and a bug.' Furio thought. 'Nostria did not choose it's sigils wisely.'

The city's colours didn't fit at all. White was Andergastian which carried the green acorn and oak leaves on a white field. The red was offensive in any case. Furio had heard the story that Joborn had switched owners and sides between Andergast and Nostria so often in their perpetual wars that it eventually grew tired of changing it's sigil and made it this way once and for all during a brief time in which it was independent. Of Joborners it was said that they did not care either way as to who ruled them.

To Furio's right, down a small valley was the Ornib, and across the kingdom of Andergast.

“I think they're killing each other in there.” Laura observed curiously, leaning on her toes to get a better view of the city.

With Janna's promise that they would wait there, Furio hurried to the gate with Graham by his side. The gates had been shut and weren't opened to the frantic peasants beating on them with their fists but when a Horasian officer in a green sash spied Furio he finally gave the command.

“Open gate! Unload weapons! Disengage!”

The idea that the artillerists and crossbowmen on the walls and towers could have loosed at the giantesses was frightening to behold, given that the two of them could have plained this city in a matter of minutes just by walking over it several times.

“Do not, ever, have our missiles pointed at them again!” Furio shouted at the officer as a greeting.

The man had shown an engaged, professional demeanour on his approach but now bit back his tongue and paled.

“Back to your station, Lieutenant!” A hastily arrived yet meticulously polished major barked at him, his cuirass catching the light of the setting sun.

Then he smashed his heels together, removed his curved morion half-helm and saluted: “Master Furio? With me! General Scalia wants word!”

Furio nodded and went, dragging Graham along with him. He saw some tumult going on and the city guard handling it roughly.

“Looters.” The major explained swiftly and rash from in front. “We are all a little tense.”

“You are Major Marillio.” Furio replied, more as a question than anything else.

It was the rash, crisp demeanour of the man that made him memorable, not his features. Marillio had a hot temper and was the embodiment of disagreeableness, meaning he always spoke true and bluntly.

“Hipp-hipp hooray for Furio the Red, hahaha! The woe-bringing wizard returns from Thorwal!”

“Hipp-hipp hooray!”

“Lost his colour, ain't he? Someone bring a red cloak!”

The banter came from anonymous men on the walls but Furio felt strangely flattered by it, just as he had last time.

“You are well liked by the men.” The major said, marching down the road in such a hurry that Furio was losing his breath. “You should wear red robes to mark you.”

'I had red robes.' Furio thought bitterly.

The silk shirt Lee had given him was very nice, but the woollen shift a tad simple for his station. It was entirely inappropriate for a major of the army to tell a mage how to dress but Marillio was impervious to such considerations.

“If not for you,” the officer continued, “the men would be fighting against these things before the city; and most likely loosing.”

Furio could only huff, puff and agree. The way to the castle wasn't extremely long from the gate he had entered through. They took a right turn before the central market and made steep up the plateau on which the castle stood.

“I heard ogres attacked here?” He asked between breaths.

“Yes.” Marillio replied immediately. “Their whole army sits across the Ornib, waiting, if the scouts can be believed. It is the reason why we are here. A smaller party led by the Impaler herself crossed the Ingval not ten kilometres downstream. We believe they meant to fall into our backs during the main thrust. They ran against an outpost however and were forced to retreat after enduring heavy losses.”

“And since?”

“Since, they have been waiting, seemingly unsure what to do. They are manoeuvring some, but always remain in reach of here. It is clear that they want Joborn. We have erected new outposts all along the river fronts, a strongly enforced perimeter.”

What did they want with it though, Furio wondered. Far as he could see there wasn't anything special here. Giants were greedy and stupid he supposed and still some doubts lingered. Outside and above the city at the same time, Janna and Laura were talking in their own tongue, loud enough to be heard by everyone inside. It was almost loud enough to be understood over the rattling of the iron portcullis that was being drawn up.

“The lad had best wait without.” Marillio said with a court nod and marched on.

And so, Furio was alone. Not really alone next to the major and a plethora of men at arms that showed up to gape at him but he felt alone all the same. Some cheered from behind the second line where they could not be identified and disciplined by their officers.

The castle had a massive square bergfried, accessible by a steep wooden stair. Two high round towers stood positioned right next to each other and next to the gatehouse were the stables. Two large, timber and brick houses served as living quarters. When the mage and the major wanted to enter the larger one of the buildings, the exiting Major Emilio Rieu hailed Furio amicably.

He too was polished and scrubbed to a shine. Scalia was keeping a tight regiment.

“I am ordered to arrange supper.” The man explained stiffly, twisting his thin, black moustachio. “I thank Hesinde that she gave our great generalissimo the wisdom to bring so many supplies.”

Furio had almost forgotten about it. It was time Janna and Laura had their meal and one that did not consist of human beings.

“Lots of jellied fruit, sweet and southern. They like that.” He advised, passing the officer by. “And meat!”

“I heard they like it when their food squirms.” Marillio commented and ushered Furio on.

They passed through a hall that was empty and dark and went up a flight of stairs to a solar. The major knocked, opened the door and entered last.

General Gaius Scalia sat a table with a quill in his hand, fixing Furio with his eyes. A scribe gathered up parchments and left, closing the door behind. There were only the three of them, far as Furio could see, and they were standing oddly far away.

“It seems secrecy was a folly.” Scalia said after what seemed like an eternity.

He wore green, quilted velvets stitched with thread of gold, his obligatory golden sash and a white ruffle around his neck that made him look more civilian than he was. His hair was white and grew backwards from a widow's beak, giving him a stringent appearance.

“Yes, my lord general.” Furio bowed. “It seems one hundred metre tall beasts are not possible to hide.”

Scalia studied him for a moment longer: “You make light, and yet, did we not send you north to keep the Thorwalsh from threatening our supply lines?”

That part Furio had to own up to, and yet he did feel like having in fact surpassed expectations if a sum was drawn.

“The giantesses have killed every Thorwaller between Salza and Olport that they could their hands on.” He explained. “Olaf the terrible is dead. The demon worshipper Swafnirson is dead, who had erected a sanctum of evil at their capital. The Thorwalsh fleet was smashed to kindling by the giantess Janna whom you have met. She is united with Laura, the other one, and they are as friendly to us as they could be.”

“I heard that they killed the god Swafnir too.” Marillio threw in inconsiderately. “Is this true?”

“For all I know they killed an albino whale of huge proportions.” Furio replied. “What the few remaining Thorwalsh make of that is their matter.”

“Some would not call four thousand fighters few.” General Scalia objected, ignoring everything else.

He spoke as usual with no expression on that old face with the hollow cheeks and high cheek bones. His speech was still the same too, like that lumbering wagon, halting at every few words as though they were rocks. The quill he had discarded and rested his elbows on the table in front of him, fingertips steepled against each other.

“Hjalmar Boyfucker must have been at the battle of Thorwal.” Furio explained further. “We reckon he swam ashore and gathered as many men and women as he could, killing all the rest and leaving only scorched earth. Janna and Laura had rested at Thorwal for longer than anticipated and then meant to impress us by wiping out all Thorwalsh settlements to the north. Had we turned south instead, this likely would not have happened but we would have had Prem, Waskir and Olport to content with, not to mention the plethora of villages. The giantesses made the decision to leave Thorwal City for their return to...use it's people as provisions. That was ill done and it was my failure not to convince them to destroy the city before they set out north.”

“Before this, I had half a mind to hang you.” Scalia said coldly. “This admission makes me want to hang you even more. Alas, it seems the magic you used to bind the creatures to your will is gone. All magic is gone.”

“And still they follow him.” Major Marillio added with a certain admiration.

Furio was on his heels. He had suspected something of this nature for a while but he did not believe for one minute that any of the mages' guilds would admit that they now were basically just a bunch of scholars well-read in a field no longer useful to anyone.

“Did you draw that conclusion by the sudden withdrawal of mages from the front lines?” He attempted.

Scalia eyed him forever without expression. Then there was a sudden interrupting knock at the door and Emilio Rieu entered.

“The feeding is underway.” He bowed, looking as though he had just won a battle. “The monsters have taken boats from the river and we are filling them like troughs. Then they eat out of them with their hands or by pouring the fodder into their mouths.”

“Weren't you supposed to oversee the procedure?” Furio asked critically.

“Master Hypperio has relieved me.” Emilio replied. “He wishes word with you once you are done here.”

General Scalia made a gesture: “You are dismissed.”

That was so strange that Furio couldn't deal with it at first. He needed Marillio to lead him from the solar and close the door behind him. No orders. That was bad. Janna and Laura were terrible on any given day but they were clearly at their worst when there was nothing to do. Furio found it utterly imprudent to keep them here. Or was he supposed to cross the Ornib and attack that army of ogres that was supposedly there? He didn't know and there seemed to be little gain in grasping the nettle, taking initiative and trying to do good on one's own presumptions.

He didn't want to get hanged.

“Your laps was a hard blow.” Major Marillio gave him another fill of straight forward talking after letting go of his arm outside. “Suddenly we were confronted with all those Thorwallers raiding our supplies between the capital and the front where before we had nothing but a few flimsy outlaws to content with. And Nostria suffered greatly as well and now even more since we convinced the nobles to protect our supplies rather than their fiefdoms.”

Furio had no ears for that. His head was full. In the courtyard he could hear that Janna was speaking with some person. It sounded quite pleasant, although he could not hear what that person said.

“And then we went all the way up to...up to...that place...”

“Olport.” Laura helped out.

“Yah! And it was all rocky up there and cold and there were Nivese people there. They rode little ponies and were shooting arrows. Yes, we crushed them too. No trouble at all.”

She laughed and told how Laura had made extra sure that none of the horse archers escaped while Laura giggled and imitated with her mouth the sound of the bodies as she pureed them under her feet.

“Then we went south, uh, to Waskir or something but that was boring. They were all melting metal there and such and it was very dirty.”

Suddenly Furio had to smile. Hypperio was talking to them, trying to enchant them. That proved hard though, without magic, and the girls were playing dumb as if they knew not to trust him. That was smart.

“A scribe took your writings, master.” Graham mumbled through his facial paralysis when they were reunited at the gate where Marillio left him.

'So.' Furio thought.

He needed to speak with Hypperio in any case.

The looting had been stopped and the city was settling in for an uneasy sleep it seemed. It had gotten rather dark and firewood and candles were not in inexhaustible supply, so people tended to give themselves to Boron, the sleeping way, not the dying, as soon as Praios' disk was beneath the horizon.

If they had to stay the night he would find himself some place by a fire, he thought. It was getting cold. Janna and Laura had wrapped their blankets over their shoulders. What they carried inside the blankets during the day, including Laura's obscene stone phallus, lay on the ground behind them.

“Does the food not taste like boat that way?!” He shouted out on his approach so they'd know he was there.

They really used small ships like people used trenchers. The wagons had been rolled away though and everyone but Hypperio was gone.

“It's half so bad.” Janna giggled in reply. “It makes for convenient eating, and fast.”

Laura couldn't help but add something snide of course: “Yeah, picking morsel for morsel is exhausting and it's a welcome change to eat something that doesn't complain about it.”

That line wasn't unusual and as usual Furio did not believe it.

“Master Furio!” Hypperio beckoned. “My dear colleague, we must speak!”

'We must indeed.'

“In a moment!” Furio called back, still walking before he addressed the two living mountains before them. “Janna, Laura, it seems that we will sleep here. Do you need help to find a suitable place?”

“Here is fine. Master Hypperio allowed us to flatten this farmhouse.” Janna shrugged, pointing to the ground on which she sat that had apparently been someone's home once. “I don't think there was anyone inside, although we didn't really look.”

Laura chuckled: “We should have looked.”

Then Janna chuckled as well. Killing people was a game for them and the more innocent their toys the funnier it was. Furio wondered if Hypperio understood what he was dealing with.

“Well then, come!” The other mage took Furio back to the city. “There is much to discuss and you need robes suitable to your station. I have had a room prepared for you and a meal.”

Furio wasn't sure if he wanted mages' robes after all, seeing as he was unable to cast magic. Hypperio was much smaller and shorter than him in any case, but perhaps he had brought fitting garb along.

“My assistant will need accommodations as well.” He said briskly. “Have it arranged.”

“Yes, about that.” The other suddenly whispered. “Do you think it wise to take a student in our situation? And what happened to the last acolyte you took under your wing?”

Furio felt revulsion build up in his chest and he had to fight hard not to let it squirt out of him like puss out of an infected wound.

“She died.” He reported through clenched teeth. “An ogress...beheaded her.”

'Twisted her head off as if she was nothing.'

Hypperio lowered his gaze theatrically: “Her parents will be woe to hear it.”

Furio did not want to talk about his beloved acolyte and so he said: “Did you tell Scalia about the loss of our arcane powers?”

Hypperio made himself look betrayed: “Of course not, my dear colleague! It is way more complicated than that.”

“Then tell me after my trusty assistant has settled into his accommodations.”

The other's sigh was reluctant agreement. A while later they were in Hypperio's chambers that seemed to have been inhabited by a young lady before. There were flowers everywhere, once fresh ones that had rotten and eternally fresh ones carved into the wood of chairs, tables, boxes, cabinets and even the the lavish bed.

In comparison, Graham was sleeping on four sacks of flour in the kitchen and Furio received a crammed chamber with a coffin for a bed.

“A man arrived here before the moon's turn.” Hypperio finally said while handing over a large silver goblet full of wine. “His name was Jindrich Welzelin.”

“The court mage of Andergast.” Furio remembered the man for the letter informing the White Guild of the re-emergence of Vengyr the druid.

Vengyr had the main task of Furio's original mission, but he had never gotten anywhere near accomplishing it.

“Just the man.” Hypperio drank some wine and was clearly uneasy. “He told us of...quite a lot. Sit.”

The story was fantastic and horrible. A druidic gathering, a ritual to restore Vengyr. Edorian Zornbold, the king-to-be of Andergast, hit by a falling rock. The pale giant king, Albino, banished by a restored Vengyr and Vengyr killed by a woman and a mage that was likely...

“Xardas.” Hypperio finished darkly.

Furio's head was spinning. Tales of the man were manifold and oft as not devolved into mad hypotheses of conspiracy involving many a historical event. Others simply believed that he was a myth. At least he didn't have to worry about Vengyr any more and Albino seemed out of the picture as well. That was good, at least.

“Whoever the wizard was, he was killed too.” Hypperio added. “Welzelin repeated it over and over, even under the worst of torture.”

“You tortured him to death.” Furio surmised, stunned at the stupidity as he realized it.

His colleague shuffled his feet, squirming: “Mhh, he was not an important man but we had to make sure as to the validity of his words...he succumbed, is all. He was weakened by his long travel in the forest, alone.”

Furio's brow sank into the palm of his hand and he rubbed his temples.

“Where did he say that ritual took place?”

“Uh, north west of Andrafall in Andergast. Far north. He reckoned that it would have been roughly at the longitude of Oakhaven, but there is no way to be sure of that. It was an approximation, nothing more, he said so himself.”

Furio wished he knew the world's landscape as Graham did.

Seemingly guessing that, Hypperio added: “From there to here it would have been anywhere from fifty to a hundred kilometres.”

“A hundred kilometres?!” Furio roared, his blood boiling. “Alone, without powers, in Andergastian wood, and you killed that man?!”

They ought to have given him a decoration, a title and their utmost admiration instead. Embarrassed, Hypperio stared down into his chalice, seeking forgiveness in the wine.

“It were the general's orders.” He finally admitted, rueful. “But he is keeping the thing a secret. Only we and his most trusted officers know.”

Furio was still too angry to speak about the matter. He had come to feel nothing but contempt for his colleague. The man could be helpful at times but never enough for Furio to think kindly of him. Major Emilio Rieu was somewhat similar in that regard.

“The guild knows too, of course.” Hypperio went on after a while. “They sent letters to everyone, most secret. They are ordering us all back to our academies so to gather in study and find a solution to this.”

That sounded like the White Guild of mages Furio knew.

“The solution to our problem is not in any old book.” He finally found his speech again. “This was blood magic of the highest order, a fickle matter and the druids and witches do not believe in writing.”

“I agree.” Hypperio looked up. “I think we must find a solution to this.”

“I will think about it.” Furio replied, rising. “But I tell you now that if there was somehow to exclude you from the restoration of the arcane then I would do it without hesitation. And I want my writings back.”

His colleague blinked at him, oblivious: “Your writings?”

He was too tired and frustrated to deal with it now: “They will be with me again on the morrow, or Janna will have you suffer a little accident the next time you get too close to her. I must warn you though, colleague, she is much better at squishing whole persons than just part of them.”

With that, he rushed out the door, furious.

No sooner had he left Hypperio's quarters than he reflected on what he had said before that. He had no idea on how to even attempt to restore any of their powers, no matter how the momentary optimism might have made it sound. There were more pressing matters at hand in any case. Or where there? He had received no orders and that was most worrying. Besides, he had seen so much, written so much, even if he didn't get his scripts back he could be a scholar and write books. A life in service of Hesinde. He wasn't sure he needed magic any more.

The hall was so dark when he crossed it that he bumped awkwardly into benches and chairs, the wood on stone clanger echoing against the walls. He had to feel his way to the door of his chamber. After pushing the door open he was pleased to discover that someone had placed a burning lantern there for him but then he saw the man sitting as the desk overspilling with items and he almost shrieked.

General Scalia turned his head, looking like the thing out of a nightmare in the dim light from below.

'He's come to hang me.' His first thought was, but then he recognized that the general had been reading parchment with Furio's own handwriting on it. Next to the scripts was a colouration Graham had made after Furio described the dream he had at Salza, showing Laura, sitting in the burned city, crushing people after making them worship her feet. It was gruesome and yet Laura was depicted plain-faced, smiling amicably and looking right back at the beholder, just like she had looked at Furio in his dream. He had not mentioned it to Graham in this detail, and yet the work had turned out spot on anyway.

“Your illuminator is a talented one.” Scalia looked at the drawing. “And you do write well. Close the door.”

Furio did as he was bid but was still utterly puzzled.

“Laura is not as meaty as that.” He managed when it seemed that a reply was in order. “I think the lad has too much of an imagination.”

“It will serve.” The general was still looking at it, expressionless. “If we sent the depiction of a giant, scrawny peasant to court, nothing would be apt to frighten the nobility more. Her wild hair ought to scare them enough for now.”

That and the squashed people beneath her toes, although in actual fact the court might care less about that. Furio still did not believe his eyes and ears. It was all too queer. Somehow though, he felt another hammer blow coming. General Scalia would not be sitting alone in Furio's chambers just to compliment him on his writings. The fact that he wanted to submit his scripts to court was not entirely surprising. The gentle society of the nobly born and the rough, harsh one of military men seldom spoke the same language, except in the case of high-born officers.

But the general had even better news: “His Royal Magnificence Horasio The Third has requested all of your accounts, uncensored, for his personal lecture.”

Furio's mouth went dry and his heart started beating in his chest: “The emperor will read my scripts?”

That was an unspeakable honour. To think that the emperor must have mentioned him, perhaps even by name...

Scalia still studied Graham's brilliant but horrifying work without any hint of a reaction: “He has taken great interest in you.”

“He...he honours me beyond words.” Furio sat down on a nearby seeder chest, feeling that his legs were no longer willing to carry him.

Then Scalia looked at him, studying him as before.

“Your mission in Thorwal was a monstrous folly.” He said. “But, in his wisdom, his Royal Magnificence has seen fit to entrust you with a matter more suited to the destructiveness of your beasts.”

Furio could barely believe his ears: “A request from the emperor himself?!”

“A command.” Corrected Scalia. “But before you hear it you must swear to maintain absolute secrecy. On your life. This is a matter of imperial security and integrity.”

Scalia might not have thought him equal to the task but Furio swore to himself that he would do everything in his power to fulfil it, no matter what it was.

“I swear!” He broke out. “On my life!”

“Very well.” Scalia went on. “It is not for me to question royal decrees. You must go south, to the Margraviate of Havena.”

“South?” Furio echoed, entirely perplexed. “Havena? My Lord General, I do not understand.”

He had been sure to go to Andergast to deal with the ogres, or something of that nature. Surely, the command would have come eventually.

Havena was a Horasian city just south of Nostria, the other way entirely. It belonged to Horas after seceding from the Kingdom of Albernia which was part of the Garethian empire. That had been a great politicum at the time because it happened after the Garetho-Horasian war had raged horribly for decades. The conflict still lingered in the background and flared up every now and then in disputes between bordering regions. With the matter of Havena there had been grievous outrage but very little war according to the histories. It was by now firmly in Horasian hands and was considered an integral part of the empire.

Or so Furio had thought.

“The margraviate has seceded from the empire and turned it's cloak once more.” General Scalia said firmly.

Furio was outraged: “How?! When?!”

No one had told him about this and it would have been very noteworthy news, something they would have had to tell him immediately.

He remembered how insolent King Andarion of Nostria had been and how odd Lord Ingvalion Salzarell had behaved. None of them had told him of Havena, but in light of it's secession their behaviour made a lot more sense. Horas had lost an integral part of itself. It needed friends now more than ever, and Nostria shared a border with the Margraviate.

This was an extremely serious matter.

“Only a few days past.” Scalia replied. “How, matters little. His Royal Magnificence is not willing to let this treason go unpunished.”

If it had happened recently it was reasonable to assume that the soldiers didn't know about it, at least.

“But...” Furio was startled. “If it only happened a few days ago how can this order come from his Royal Magnificence Horasio The Third?”

Word would have had to travel to the emperor who was most likely in the Horasian heartlands at this time, by messenger pigeon at the quickest, and then a bird or a rider would have had to reach Joborn and General Scalia. Furio doubted that there were sufficient messenger pigeons from Joborn however, but then again, the Horasian intelligence machine often achieved surprising feats. Still, the time seemed short. If a message had arrived it could only have done so most conveniently aligned with his own arrival here, and not to say suspiciously so.

“Do you question my integrity?” If the general was affronted his face did not show. “Very well. News of the giant creatures has stirred the peace like a swarm of wasps. Word of our alliance with them has seeped through the cracks as well, as you know. Many of our cities and duchies have issued letters of indignation while others proclaim themselves enthralled and hope to host the monsters as an exposé. Moral and religious objections are manifold however, and it is not be neglected the probability of the churches meddling in our imperial affairs, as well as Garethian meddling.”

Of course the secession had not commenced instantaneously, Furio cursed himself for a fool. There would have been public outcry, schemes, plots from many sides, all things that His Royal Magnificence's informers would have picked up on and reported.

“Why was this not stopped in it's tracks?” He asked instead of lowering his gaze in shame.

He was still too agitated, although he knew he was behaving out of line.

“It was the steward, Ardach Herlogan, who is primarily responsible.” Scalia replied patiently. “He conspired with the Council of Elders as well as the Kingdom of Albernia, who have already announced that Havena be their restored capital as part of the deal. Our troops from the margraviate have been largely transferred here and the remainder were unable to stop it. And with the Impaler threatening us from across the river, we have no troops to spare for sending south.”

“So we must go there and convince the city to join us once more.” Furio concluded.

“No.” The other replied with horrifying calm. “The beasts must go there and crush the city underfoot, along with as many inhabitants as they can trample.”

Furio felt his stomach turn upside down and it was a good thing that he had not eaten yet. What Scalia had just told him was near unfathomable. Havena was a major city. A huge city, and not an unpleasant one at that either. It sat in the marshlands of an enormous river delta, belonging to “The Big River” which reached far into the Garethian Empire and connected many places with each other, even further up than the city of Griffinsford. Then it was a coastal city as well, with all the perks of trade that came with that.

Due to the marshlands on which it was built, the city had been very green, very fertile and had seemed so full of life to Furio's eyes. He had liked this city very much and by time of the last census it reportedly had just over thirty five thousand inhabitants, most of whom he would have considered Horasians until now. It was unimaginable, Janna and Laura walking through those streets and crushing all those people, despite what they had done in Thorwal.

Also, the whole thing reeked of war.

“But...” He swallowed before forcing himself to put his feelings aside and think rationally. “May I speak bluntly, my Lord General?”

Scalia's face did not change: “Why not. You have spoken blunt before, without my leave too.”

Furio stammered wordlessly, his lips bobbing but no words coming out for a moment: “Uh...ah...this seems folly. The city is full of our own people, and many of them loyal subjects who came there from down south. And we might start a war!”

The general folded his old but remarkably big hands on the table.

“War is coming if we let the rumours fester.” He said. “It was past time we presented the world with the hammer we carry hidden in our shield. Let them see. His Royal Magnificence might have chosen to send me instead, and you and your beasts would be guarding the river or attacking the ogres in Andergast. But by this, he let's the Garethians know what we are capable of and likely make them think twice about war. Destroying Havena will send an unmistakable message: keep the peace, or be destroyed. As for the loyal subjects you speak of; it seems to me that they were given ample time to leave and prove their loyalty. Anyone who remains when the giantesses arrive will be an enemy fit for crushing.”

The Winter War they would call it, Furio thought. In his estimation it was just as strong a possibility that Gareth, and per chance other parts of the world, would react outraged, ally against Horas and try to destroy Janna and Laura who threatened them. That it happened in winter was important because despite naturally higher attrition it would mean that the peasants could be conscripted largely without heavy deficits in agriculture – at least until the giantesses would crush the first armies and the peasants would not be able to return to their fields in spring. Then, no one would sow, but for every one squelched to cadaverous pulp there was one less mouth to feed too.

But surely, horrible, powerful and destructive or not, Janna and Laura could not take on the whole world. They would die sooner or later and if not by means of violence then by virtue of exhaustion from trampling hundreds of thousands into the mud. The Novadis had that method of execution where a man was thrown into a hole and a million hungry crickets were poured over him, nibbling at his flesh, bite for tiny bite until only bones were left. Alone, the insect was nothing, but a swarm made it strong. Where man and crickets differed was their capacity for fear in a swarm. A singular insect would jump and hide in the high grass from the stomping feet of man. But man ran even in a swarm, when he was overwhelmed with terror.

And there was Thorwal to consider too, which Janna and Laura had wiped from the face earth almost without breaking a sweat, only coming in peril when there were too few people they could undo.

“I trust they are equal to the task?” Scalia inquired after a pause during which he never took his eyes off Furio.

They meant the giantesses but Furio did not know the answer to the question.

“I suppose so,” He said helplessly, “after what I have seen them do. I reckon, however, that the steward Ardach Herlogan was not so kind as to return the siege engines that defended his city?”

“We may consider it theft.” The general replied. “But returning them would have been foolish, fearing retaliation as he must.”

Furio remembered the imposingly mighty red brick walls of the city and the octagonal fort around the palace there. What role the artillery pieces would play was to be determined by the way in which they were arranged. If they were only placed on the towers it wouldn't be so bad. But if an attack was being anticipated, army or gargantuan girls mattered not, there might be trebuchets and onagers placed and enough burning materials to hurl from inside the walls.

“They move fast.” Scalia settled Furio's doubts with tactical advice. “And the larger the artillery the more cumbersome it is to load. Once they are over the walls, the stone throwers will be useless and they are so huge that arrows and quarrels should not trouble them.”

And then, the butchery would commence. Furio pulled his woollen shift tighter around his shoulders. It was cold.