Dari sat at a table in front of an enormous wooden tankard of black ale. Yellow-white foam spilled over the rim, leaving a fine smear as it travelled down in thick wads. The tavern's name was 'The Red and Black', but what that stood for, she could not have said. It was a mingling place for sell-swords, the inn-keep, Bronnbrecht One-Eye, making a business of mediating between contractors and contractees.

Outside rang the hammers, The Red and Black being situated in the smithy quarter of Andergast. Maybe the colours stood for a coal fire, she reasoned. Either way, the tavern was practically empty at this time because all sell-swords had been hired, slain or had fled when they still could. Mercenaries weren't renowned as much for their valour as for their greed, and a dead man could neither spend nor hoard any gold.

Sly sat across from Dari, smiling amiably. To Dari's left sat Thorsten Hafthor Olafson of Thorwal, now free, huge and quite possibly mad.

“We must get off this slave ship!” He had been heard to say often as of late, when one of his fits befell him, which was more often than not.

Normal men grew haggard in captivity, but not so he. The general consensus was that his mind had snapped like an overstrained rope. And ever since, Thorsten had been rowing, up and down, pulling and working in the ropes he had been bundled up in like a bade in swaddling clothes. It had chaffed the skin off his arms and wrists as well as part of his chest, leaving long, pink scars. But most importantly, it had turned him into even more of a hunk than he had been before.

His beard had grown quite fiercely as well, helping to make him look decades older.

He quaffed his third tankard of the day and pushed it over to Dari's right where the inn-keep stood, already waiting. Bronnbrecht's eye gave him a weary glance.

“You have a mighty thirst, Thorwaller.” He noted and looked over at Sly.

“We're good for it.” The brigand smiled and tossed the one-eyed man another copper.

Prices were back to normal in Andergast, or even lower than ever, after Varg the Impaler had flooded the market with her goods. How long this could last, only Sly could know, but he didn't share those concerns with Dari. He hadn't been very talkative at all since they had captured the city.

That was still something Dari was non too happy about. She had endured Trundle, then Varg, then convinced the ogres' human auxiliaries to be lead by her in taking over the capital. Arombolosh, leader of the Frundengar Hammerfists and even taller than Thorsten, had been the hardest nut to crack. It took some cunning mumbling from his shaman, Gillax, to convince him to let Dari lead him into battle. And what a battle that was...

They had arrived at the southern gates before dawn, a cunning plan in their heads that Dari had laid out. They'd pose as sell-swords or giant-slayers, offering their service. Once inside, she would give the command to attack. The Steppe Foxes would clear the streets and the Thuran Bortherhood the city walls while the Fjarninger barbarians would storm King's Castle with Sly's men in reserve.

But they had been expected, even scolded for coming late, and let in without a shred of cunning needed on part of any of them. While Dari had been busy crossing the Ingval in her tiny boat before being used as a bed slave by Trundle and Varg, Sly had already brokered the city's surrender.

That wasn't the official story, of course. The way the heralds had informed the city folk, it was all the valiant Lord Kraxl's doing. He had brokered the peace with the ogres. Varg, the ogre queen, had been so thoroughly outmanoeuvred and outwitted by his diplomacy that she could not other than come to Andergast with her army and provide protection, fodder and tribute to show her good will.

And the Andergastians could do naught but embrace her, for better or worse. Queen Effine's stupidity had brought them to their knees anyhow and now work was being commenced in the city once more. There was even talk of reopening trade. For this purpose, the ogres assisted with logging stoneoaks, preparing a large shipment for selling in Griffinsford to show the Garethian Empire that Andergast was back on the map.

The ogre camp was placed south of the river inside the Ingval Fort and around it, to keep the citizens relatively safe and away from ogre cruelty. Slavery was unsavoury, even in this backward place, but the ogres would not part with the custom. Sometimes screaming could be heard from across the river at night, when an ogress used or chastised one of her slaves.

Andergast itself was hard for them to manoeuvre because the houses jettied forth from their foundational stories so much in places, that they almost kissed the building on the opposite side of the street. Varg ventured into the city every now and then, which was a big event to be sure, and oft as not Weepke, her most formidable warrior and bodyguard, accompanied her.

Permanently in the city was only a giant called Firehand, a mad, bearded curiosity with much less interest in violence than metallurgy. With hands raw, red, scabbed and blistered he could be seen hammering as long as the day's light permitted and being instructed by master smiths of the guild. Much like at logging stoneoaks, combining human craftsmanship with ogre strength reputedly gave birth to possibilities unheard of.

“Well,” Bronnbrecht One-Eye sat down after handing Thorsten a fourth, overspilling tankard of ale, “If you two are looking for employment, there's good chance I can arrange something for you. My price is fair, you'll find. So?”

“We have to drink this while they are giving it to us!” Thorsten whispered to Dari, his eyes wide. “We'll need all our strength when we make our escape!”

He looked around suspiciously before starting to quaff down the ale so forcefully that she almost had to laugh.

“He's not right in the head, is he?” The innkeeper remarked with a frown of his single eye.

“They're cunning!” Thorsten whispered into his drink. “They've made their ship look like a tavern so we won't mind too much! Oh, haha, but we're too smart for them!”

He stared at the ceiling as if he could hear footsteps there while drinking the rest of his ale in silence.

“Well, there's a tool for every task, eh?” Bronnbrecht went on. “Can't say anyone like their hired blades too cunning either. How about you?”

He looked over to Sly expectantly.

“We're not for hire at the moment.” The brigand shrugged simply, reaching for his tankard.

Bronnbrecht seemed surprised. He clearly did not often hear mercenaries decline a contract so leisurely. Then his eye turned over to Dari and he started smiling.

“Oh, that's the way of it.” He grinned. “The sell-swords have found themselves a sell-sheath, eh? Haha!”

Sly snorted into his ale, white foam flying everywhere like snowflakes. Dari would have gladly spilled the innkeeper's entrails on the floor for his remark, but that would have blown her cover. No one was to know who she was, same as Sly, as much as that was possible. So, she could only smile.

“If you would leave us.” Sly inclined his head. “We have important, uh, matters to get to.”

“I'll leave you to it.” Bronnbrecht's eye eyed Dari up and down. “Holler if you need more ale.”

And with that, the innkeeper blissfully took his leave.

“That was good work on those troublemakers.” Sly told her as soon as he was out of earshot. “The people of Andergast owe a great debt to you.”

Dari took a sip of ale to hide her face. She gave a damn about Phex' codex but ratting on some of her own had not come easy to her. But the city needed reasons to like Varg and so she had provided Sly with information regarding any shadowy activity that she knew of. Lawbreakers were no longer summarily executed as they had been while the city gates had been barred. Dari was unsure, however, if the more lenient punishments weren't in truth harsher than death ever could be.

There had been a gang running a primitive protection racket, not even truly criminal because they had not been in league with the thieves at all, as they should have been had they ventured to do it right. All they did was force their service onto shopkeepers by threatening them, beating them up or messing with their stalls. After a show trial on the market square, everyone associated with their operation had been fitted for collars and given to the ogres as slaves.

Seffel Candlemaker, the nose-less alchemist who sold Rainbow Dust under the counter of his shop, had met his end under Varg. It would have been customary to hang or behead him, but when one had a thirteen-metre-tall war beast at hand Dari supposed it was all good and well to let the people see what it might do to them in cases of disobedience. While he had been held down by guardsmen, Varg had taken her sweet time with the step that ended his life, crushing him to death slowly and agonizingly as the city of Andergast was looking on.

He had been the only one being killed though. Next to him, Varg had also stepped on and crushed the hands of five thieves, two drunk tavern brawlers as well as the manhood of a certain rapist, who insisted he had paid good coin to the woman's husband and not raped her at all.

“They caught that mushroom and herb merchant when he came back into the city with fresh supplies.” Sly continued, oblivious to Dari's feelings. “He was carrying some of these.”

He tossed a cloth sack with something soft inside onto the table.

Dari gave Thorsten a weary glance: “Are those the Thorwalsh mushrooms that make men lose their mind?”

Sly grinned: “Just so. The merchant has already confessed under torture, so tomorrow he will be forced to eat a handful of these and be let loose at Weepke, who will be awaiting him with her glaive.”

“And chop him to pieces.” Dari finished, unsure how to feel. “What about Merry, the one running the Boron Wine cellar?”

Judging by the other two substance-sellers she should get an abnormally cruel punishment, for her wares were the most destructive of all.

Sly shrugged: “The city is getting four out of every five silvers she makes, now. I can't see how she makes supply happen that way, but she's well liked and far being from me to rob this place of every pleasure it has to offer.”

Dari could only chuckle at that.

“And when will it be the queen's turn?” She asked, eyeing him closely.

Effine and Kraxl had been wed in the Travia temple this very morning. Kraxl's coronation was performed in the Praios temple and likely still going on now. After, there would be a great feast that neither Dari nor Sly would attend so as to allow them to keep a low profile. Varg would be there, though, and Ulgrosh Skinner, the ogre wife to Lord Oakhard of Engasal. It was a sublimely important event in which much could be won or lost according to how it played out.

“Give it a few days.” Sly pursed his lips. “Kraxl has already made it clear that he has no intention to bed the queen ever again after consummating the marriage. He worries about standing his man even tonight, but our herbal friend had something to remedy that as well. My man has already begun to relieve the new king of his more Rahyan duties, however. Much earlier than expected.”

He drank and Dari's mouth fell open.

“What do you mean? What man? Brock?”

That would be hilarious because Effine was remarkably ugly.

“Brock? No.” Sly smiled. “The Steppe Foxes are off to the east, foraging and scouting again. There's an army being gathered at Teshkal, did you know? I'm still looking for a way to make it ours before these fools run up against Varg and get themselves killed.”

Teshkal was a small city in Andergast's far north-east, Dari knew by now. It was somewhat special as that the land there was grim steppe rather than deep stoneoak forest as almost all the rest of Andergast was. Its sigil was a black horse's head atop a green field and the local speciality was horse breeding, and not to be underestimated at that. There was a breed of small, relatively cheap horses for all manner of purposes, often called Teshkalers, but they were really bred for and in the Andergastian forest. The Teshkalers bred at Teshkal were huge, cold-blooded draft horses, not as huge as the widely renowned Tralloper Giants, but much more affordable. Capturing Teshkal meant a steady supply of war horses for Varg's human allies, if that was something she wanted.

“Don't change the subject.” Dari washed the thoughts of Teshkal and armies from her mind. “Who's your man for the queen?”

“Shhh.” Sly made and chuckled. “That is a piece of information we cannot reveal yet. Let's just say the two have found each other, and he is great at making her laugh, despite his dark humour.”

That could only mean one thing, and it was unspeakable, unthinkable even. As soon as the gates were open, Krool the Fool had transferred from the service of Lord Uriwin Oakhard, who had grown rather tired of him, to that of the royal household, which had not possessed a fool. Dari had seen the dark-skinned man perform his antics a few times and found them a questionable pleasure at best.

His songs were hard to listen to, although his biting, hateful way of singing certainly befit the times.

“You're making mock of me.” She said aghast. “Or else he's making mock of you.”

“That would sound like him.” Sly allowed. “I was able to confirm it, however. As for your other question, not all too long. If we give the queen's shingles time to meet in the middle, who knows what else will meet during that time.”

Dari was strangely looking forward to seeing Varg crush the queen. Not only was the woman hideous to look at, she was also ignorant of her people's plight and incompetent to boot.

“Let's get Léon!” Thorsten said suddenly, setting down his empty tankard of ale. “We have to get off this ship!”

“No, Hafthor!” Sly said sharply. “Hafthor, no! Sit back down! Be a good man, now!”

Captivity had turned Thorsten's muscles to steel but his wits to mushed turnips, where before he might at least have had regular turnips for brains. Léon Logue had figured it out but done nothing interesting with the knowledge that if someone called Thorsten by his middle name he most often obeyed without question. That, incidently, had been how they managed to pry the huge Thorwaller away from Léon in the first place, because Thorsten kept insisting that Léon be freed as well.

There was a children's game that worked by the same rules, whereby one had to guess the other's true name and if successful they always had to do the callers bidding when called by that true name. In Thorsten's case, obedience appeared rather involuntary, though, or else it was an extremely cunning act.

The huge man sat down hard on his arse and stared at his tankard while Sly was calling for more ale.

“You'll have to finish that quickly, or your new one will grow stale.” He nodded at Dari's drink, still almost full to the brim.

She took the tankard, hesitated and set it down.

“And why would you care about my ale?” She asked pointedly. “Are you trying to get me drunk, per chance?”

He frowned: “I was hoping so, yes. I figured you'd be slower at your knife after I tell you about the task I have for you.”

Bronnbrecht One-Eye came with three fresh wooden tankards in hand, setting them down and moving away again. Thorsten went straight back to quaffing but Sly held his tankard out for Dari to toast. That way, she had to drink and she took a big swallow in preparation for what he would say.

“You're probably asking yourself why I took you and Thorsten here.” He began uncomfortably. “Well, it's because we have two little problems.”

“Teshkal?” She asked, clueless.

It could be that and something in Gareth, perhaps. Maybe another army was gathering at Griffinsford, or something of that nature, or maybe it was the Horasians or maybe...

“If you think I'm going anywhere near Laura and Janna again then you are mistaken!” She flared when she realized where this was going to go.

Sly winced and gave her a most apologetic look, conveying somehow that she had rather little choice in the matter.

“It's not near them, per se, uh...” His big teeth chewed his lip awkwardly, making him look like some rodent. “I'm sure you can arrange for some opportunity...I would not ask that you fling yourself under their feet or anything like that.”

“Say it!” She spat. “Who needs killing?!”

Sly watched a thick wad of foam slide down the side of his tankard.

“Uh, our problems,” he finally said, “of which there are two.”

He broke off, scratched his balding head and then his stubbly chin, frowned and bared his teeth.

“You're the only one who can do this I think.”

“Do what, solve the riddles in which you speak?!”

He gave a brief smile before turning sour and apologetic all over again: “Laura and Janna are, roughly speaking, behaving according to my expectations. The problem is, uh, I cannot tell why.”

That was even more cryptic, even though the wretch was finally saying something.

“Because they're huge and terrible monsters and no one can bloody well stop them!” Dari said angrily.

“Mh, yes.” Sly shrugged and cocked his head. “Only, the Horasians can stop them, control them even. They have a powerful war wizard who holds them under his spell. All my scouts agree with this. You remember I told you the Nostrian scouts are ours now? They have first hand knowledge of this.”

“So?” Dari asked. “What of it?”

“Well, their behaviour might change at any point in time, when that evil war wizard says so.” Sly explained. “That would render Laura and Janna far more effective and dangerous, and indeed pose a threat to us.”

“How?”

“By winning the war too quickly. If Gareth is vanquished before Varg can even lift a finger to help them we will find ourselves alone. We need time, you see?”

Dari took a draft of ale, thinking inconclusively. It made sense, she supposed, in the grand scheme of things.

“So you want that war wizard dead, aye?”

“Aye.” Sly gave a distinct nod. “Trouble is, his current task has him stick to the giantesses like a tick.”

Dari closed her eyes, rubbing them in distress while remembering her life in Lauraville. One could get killed at any time. All it took was being visible to either Laura or Janna when they got it into their gigantic heads that they would like to step on someone, or sit on them, or use them between their enormous legs. If the giantesses felt hungry they ate people with as much concern as one would pay to a prune.

But if that war wizard really could control them, then the implications were so huge that it could not be allowed to stand. He had to die, for the sake of all humanity, Dari included. What stank about it was that this directly played into the plans of empowering Varg, to ultimately ally her with Gareth against Janna and Laura. Dari suffered no illusions. She knew Varg and her ogresses were as foul and cruel a bunch as Laura and Janna ever were, except not nearly as huge.

And there was something else that was distinctly off about Sly's reasoning.

“There is no magic any more.” She said, remembering Xardas gesturing frantically before his death. “I recall you saying so too.”

“Aye.” Sly nodded darkly. “And yet my scouts insist that he controls them.” He gestured with his tankard and made a face. “Something else? Something darker? Who can say.”

Dari chewed her lip: “Friendship?”

Sly's eyes widened meaningfully: “Darkest of all!”

She slumped in her chair, defeated. She would hate this, she already knew, but saw why it was necessary all the same. Sly's grand plan of using the ogres against Janna and Laura might be humanities last hope of normalcy. It dawned upon her that, once again in a very short period, it was up to her to save the world. That made her laugh hysterically in a way Sly could not understand.

“She's mad.” Thorsten said with a mouth full of ale. “These slavers have broken her mind!”

Sly looked from him to Dari, back and back again before giving a crooked grin and helping himself to another sip of ale.

“Your father is dead, Thorsten.” Dari told the huge Thorwaller lightly, as she had done several times before.

It was amusing because he always said the exact same thing.

“That is good! He will be waiting for me in Swafnir's Halls, drinking and feasting and sharing all his stories with our forefathers!”

“I can almost smell the stench.” Sly added with a laugh.

Dari had told him softly and condolingly the first time, but that had yielded the same stubborn reply. First she had thought he hadn't heard, but each time she told him Thorsten gave the exact same answer, word for word. It was like his middle name or his fits and hallucinations. He was a broken, done man. Since his father was dead and Thorwal destroyed, he had no more worth as a hostage. But with the timing of sufficient confirmation, Phex had played a cruel trick on the young Thorwaller. Now that Sly seemingly agreed to let him go, he was mad. Dari felt sorry for that, which was a thing she could not say very often.

“Janna and Laura are huge and move faster than you could possibly imagine.” She turned her mind back to the matter at hand. “Please tell me you have one of your cunning plans at hand, so I don't have to go find them.”

“Uh, aye.” Sly smiled amiably. “Joborn is where you will go. The Horasians have moved their headquarters safely behind its walls. To receive orders, the evil war wizard must go there, or close enough for you to strike him. I reckon, the giantesses are a tad too huge to be invited into any hall?”

Dari could have kissed him. Sly's plan turned the whole affair from one of the most dangerous jobs she had ever done into a simple hit on some man in robes. In the absence of magic, the best thing he would have to defend himself was his staff, she was guessing. It could hardly be any easier without demanding too little of her abilities.

“What's his name?” She asked, fired up at the prospect of an important, meaningful hit that was not suicide on her part.

Now she had to learn as much as she could about her victim.

“Furio Montane.” Sly said, satisfied. “Or Furio the Red, according to some.”

“Furio.” Dari nodded, committing the name to memory. “What if he doesn't show up?”

Sly shrugged: “If no opportunity presents itself then you must improvise. I suppose causing a little disruption among the Horasian officers could be tempting, but that might prove a risk not worth taking, in light of things. Get the wizard and get out of there alive.”

“And my reward?” She smiled, raising an eyebrow.

Sly chuckled: “Gold? Land? What do you want? You could have run a hundred times by now. Something keeps you here. Ah! A place to belong, perhaps?”

The brigand was too clever by half, she conceded to herself. Also, she could not have said what she wanted as a reward anyhow. In Gareth she had had power and more gold than she ever could have spent, but that was not what had made life worth living there.

“And what is Thorsten doing in all this?” She asked, changing the subject. “Will he break free or would you keep him as your land-locked galley slave for the rest of his days?”

“I was rather hoping to put him on a ship.” Sly frowned apologetically again. “Two little problems, remember?”

-

It was day four after Janna had arrived at Joborn. Day four and Laura was not yet back. Perhaps something had happened. The thought left her tummy in knots. But even if everything had went according to plan Laura would come back to her tomorrow at the earliest, or the day after that. Surely, crushing a whole kingdom alone took more time than doing it together.

Joborn was an unremarkable town of a thousand people and a fluctuating number of soldiers. The former were slowly getting used to Janna's presence, towering over their lives, and they had no choice but to engage in the everyday grind. Hardly anyone ever chose to engage in anything with her , though. The soldiers came and went, coming from or going on patrol, delivering messages or relieving one of the many outposts along the river.

Janna's wire to Horasian high command was Master Hypperio, a small, thin man with a face that looked somewhat like a weasel's. He wore white robes, always clean, and one of those lipped, brown leather caps on his shaven head. It was also he who now had chief responsibility for Furio's survival.

It would have been great to keep Yann Redhand and Master Zaum to treat Furio, as she had originally planned. But when she had almost arrived at Joborn she thought about how to tell General Scalia about the change of plans and had resolved not to say anything until she had to. So, to prevent the truth from emerging at this inconvenient time, she had crushed the grey old wizard under her foot and stuffed the young barber surgeon down her panties. He came in handy that night after she had crawled into her sleeping bag and sleep would not come. She rubbed herself to a sweet, quiet climax with his struggling form. Then she broke his neck and swallowed him to rid herself of the evidence.

The Horasians had a whole staff of surgeons and doctors, as she knew, and she had made sure that only the best of the best were tending to Furio. Hypperio's daily reports were always the same, however.

“He has not woken, sad to say.” He would stand on one of the towers of the castle and knead his hands in distress. “But he has also not died.”

That distress was the reason she stayed at Joborn, exerting pressure on them to give it their best efforts. Furio's survival was in everyone's interest, far as she could see, but she had to make sure they did not get murderous notions about excessive blood-letting, exorcisms or amputations into their heads. When they wanted to apply leeches to him, they had to come to her first. Furio's wound had become infected. He was feverish, sweating, pale and unmoving. None of those were good signs, especially not in medieval times. Had she been true to herself, Janna would have admitted that chances were slim.

“One of the doctori told me he heard him mumble in the night.” Hypperio had given to account yesterday. “Something about the gods. That is good! I am praying to Peraine every day for his recovery, and to Hesinde that she may grant me wisdom!”

Janna had asked if there was anything more they might do, but the tiny wizard only shook his head.

Joborn was relatively unremarkable as a town, but that didn't mean it was like any other town. It was situated right on the border and had changed hands many a time during the wars between Andergast and Nostria. For this reason were its defences kept in good repair and the town tightly organized. In the citizens it had instilled a certain apathy towards whom their town belonged to, but also a deep yearn for peace. Joborn had two Rahya temples. The goddess of love and wine was apparently also the one to turn to when it came to praying for peace, and just now the two temples saw a great increase in worshippers.

The lord of Joborn, Sir Ruckus, had returned a day after Janna with a column of Horasian supplies. They had been attacked on the march and lost half their wagons, as well as two thirds of Ruckus' men. Hjalmar Boyfucker and his Thorwalsh were still ravaging the countryside and targeting Scalia's supply lines in particular.

Ruckus struck Janna as a practical man trying to hold his town together, and succeeding for the most part against all odds. It didn't make the appearance that many people had fled the town at all. The farms all around were abandoned, however, and he meant to mend that with Janna's help.

“The old eagle can bugger himself!” He told her from atop his horse, a white mare with black mane and tail. “He wants me to go back out with the wagons to get more fodder for you! Meanwhile he's plundered mine own stores to feed you, but I say no! I have too few men and too few wagons besides!”

Janna had had the morning's report of Furio's condition from Hypperio and was breaking her fast on offal bags, a square sort of dumpling with meat inside, cooked in broth. They smelled slightly funny but once she didn't breathe through her nose while eating they were even enjoyable. She knew she couldn't be picky about the food. When they served her pea soup, she had eaten it. When they had served her mashed turnips, she had eaten it. When they had served her baked hams with mushrooms and carrots that one time, she had eaten it just as much as when they had served her oaten porridge with little else.

Fishermen were on the river and what caught in their nets often ended up in her belly as well. She quite enjoyed the river catch. But with every meal went Horasian pickles, and when they were dumped into the ship that served as her trencher all together the result was often a challenge to force down.

“Am I eating too much?” She asked him awkwardly, swallowing the dumplings that were presumably made of his flour and filled with his meat.

“Yes,” he replied angrily, “the very hair off my head!”

With a full head of hair Sir Ruckus would have looked comely. He had dark brown hair that grew very thick around the large, bald spot on his head along the sides of his face and culminating in a beard below his chin. He wore a white cloak with his sigil, the red stag beetle of Joborn, that was stained from travel and still spattered with old bloodstains that hadn't properly washed out.

“These fools of Horas looked as if they heard about offal bags for the first time when I broached the notion! Imagine how much good meat they must have thrown to the dogs until now!”

She had actually wondered about that.

“What's offal, my lord?” She asked innocently, pouring more dumplings and soup into her mouth from the ship.

He looked at her grimly, his deep eyes narrowing until they were as black as stag beetles themselves.

“Refuse, these fools call it! Innards, say I! Good meat!”

“Oh.”

Janna frowned, looking at the almost empty ship in her hands. They were intestines, stomachs, bladders and whatever else was usually thrown away when there was no other purpose for it. She clenched her teeth for a moment and poured the rest down her throat, trying not to think. When she ate whole animals, she necessarily ate their inner organs as well, as well as whatever was inside their bladders, their kidneys or their digestive tracks. She hadn't thought about it before and would bloody well not start fretting about it now. Besides, these innards were chopped neatly to very small pieces and well boiled. The idea of hiding the fare inside a dough pocket was practical and clever, the only thing giving it away being the smell.

“And yes, you will have to eat less if you mean to stay here!” Ruckus went on. “My small folk eat half rations, and soon quarter rations if we do not get more wagons through! Must you really eat three times a day?!”

The local habit of eating was ale in the morning along with some light food, if anything at all. There was no such thing as lunch, maybe a snack in the early afternoon, when times were good. Supper was the only real meal they had.

“Twice a day shall suffice.” She consented grudgingly. “Is the situation really so bad?”

If truth be told, she should eat a little less. The straining, perilous incursion into Thorwal had left her leaner and harder than she had probably ever been, tending to plumpness as she was. Her breasts still filled her bra and her jeans hugged her as tightly as ever, but where before there had been a bit of a belly was now something resembling a washboard. She was immensely happy about that, and slightly offended that no one around had said a word about how sexy she now was. If only Steve was here with her, she thought dreamily. Maybe he would like her now.

“The old eagle swears he has already transferred his supplies onto the river!” Ruckus replied to her question. “But I say, bugger that! When the Thorwalsh notice the wagons not coming they'll know where else to look! And who's better at fighting with ships, I ask ye?!”

The Thorwalsh, she knew. But on the river, surely there would be traps one could lay. The Horasians had outposts with artillery as well, and all they had to do if the Thorwalsh blocked the Ingval was row up in strength and clear the path. That was unless the Thorwalsh carried their ships on land to let them pass, ambushing only forces they knew they could overwhelm. It would certainly concentrate the raiders more, however, and that might make it possible for her to find them and stomp them out of existence. She'd welcome that. It had been a while since she had crushed anyone and she had felt a guilty pang in her belly when trampling Master Zaum.

“You spoke about working for my food, my lord.” She said. “I am all ears. What would you have me do?”

She noted that it was the Horasians' duty to feed her as per their agreement, at which they seemed currently failing, or would soon in any case. Maybe Scalia thought that shifting his logistics on water would solve everything. And well he might, since Jarl Olaf the Terrible was dead and his fleet destroyed.

Something useful to do would come welcome, certainly. But only if it didn't mean leaving Furio for long.

“I mean to get my peasants back into their fields!” Ruckus said. “Autumn is upon us, but there are still things to tend to and crops not yet reaped! You I need to be their gigantic guardian!”

She frowned: “I can do that, my lord, but I don't think I'll be of much use. Anyone who means to attack your small folk would see me coming from miles off, and hear me stomping through the woods? I may be huge and swift but I can't be everywhere at once.”

“That will be enough!” He replied from atop his horse. “Crush them or scare them off, makes no matter! If you encounter wild beasts then do with them as you would with any scum! If you are able to catch game then bring it back here! Firun knows, we have sore need of it!”

Firun was the god of hunting, gathering, the wild in general, ice and snow in particular. North in the local language was synonymous with his name, just as Praios, the sun god, was synonymous with south. East was Rahya, she had learned in the meantime, and West Efferd, which was complicating things since it started with an E. The Thorwalsh terms for directions had been queerly close to English and therefore required very little learning on her part: Norda, Wesda, Sydan and Ostion.

“Have you entertained the notion of sending hunters into the woods, my lord?” She asked. “Or to have your people gather acorns? Swine will grow much quicker when you feed them with acorns, my lord.”

“Mh, that they do!” He acknowledged. “But the hunting would be poaching, by law, not to forget that they would likely venture into lands that are not mine!”

“I can't imagine the other lords would mind at this time.” She told him. “And surely you can grant permission to hunt in your own lands to whomever you wish?”

“That is so! A notion not half bad!”

Janna wouldn't find any Thorwalsh in the woods. Not unless she was extremely lucky and they extremely stupid. What she might find though were tiny, little Joborners, hunting or gathering far away from anyone who might snitch when she had her fun with them. It was only fair, given that she was not obliged to work for Sir Ruckus.

“Do not break your large head over it, though!” He went on. “You just make sure no one is pestering my small folk! I doubt the wretches will come this close to the rivers anyhow, but I would not be able to forgive myself if I sent my people digging their own graves out there!”

“I understand, my lord.” She nodded. “How much of these lands belongs to you?”

It turned out not all that much, on this side of the rivers anyway. A large piece off the other side of Ingval and Ornib belonged nominally to Joborn, but as the border stood those parts were controlled by Andergast. When Ruckus broached the idea of having her secure those parts for him as well she had to decline. She could not cross the river because the queen of Andergast was holding Steve and Christina as hostages. Inland it was only ten kilometres or so that belonged to Sir Ruckus. To her, that was practically nothing.

“Then I will beseech the old eagle to give me men!” He declared. “There are broken Andergastian levies at Beilstatt I mean to hire into my service!”

“Deserters? Is that wise, my lord? Won't they run again?”

This was only the second time she exchanged words with Sir Ruckus but his rash demeanour, treating her as though she was a subject, didn't bother her in the least. In fact, she rather found it made things uncomplicated so long as she didn't insist on punishing him for it. And she had the patience of a stone and did not quite know where it came from. Probably because she had done so very little these last few days and been mostly resting. She was well balanced, if a little itchy to do anything at all.

“It is more for their sake than anything else!” He called, no longer looking at her. “For even in dark times we cannot relinquish the things that make us human! But you wouldn't know about that, would you.”

With that, he left her there, the insolent knight. Nevertheless, Janna liked him. He was straight forward, at least, and not a cynical nihilist as so many others seemed to be. He reminded her of Furio in that regard, albeit without all the baggage, the damage Janna and others had inflicted upon him.

She resolved to go north first. A stroll came in handy anyhow, after her meal. Movement was good for the bowels, the respiratory system and thereby the mind as well. It was good all over and it would burn excess calories.

Along the river, the landscape was beautiful. The soil was good as she could see by the weeds that already began to reclaim abandoned fields and acres. Some autumn flowers even still bloomed. Farmsteads lay uninhabited, some plundered. There was no livestock to eat the grass, no peasants with hoes to club the beavers who were being busy manipulating the water flow in a minuscule stream she crossed.

Once she saw a herd of deer and ran after them, but she only managed to catch three alive before having to flatten the others under her feet. Elsewise, they would have made into the forest, escaping her. She killed the living ones by twisting their heads around between her thumb and forefinger and shoved everything into her pockets.

All was void of people except for the occasional outposts. Some outposts were more in-land, others almost directly by the water, wherever there were strategically opportune positions. Old watchtowers from the wars between Nostria and Andergast were usually garrisoned, unless they were too ruinous to hold.

“Greetings, friends!” She would chirp at a group of Horasian soldiers when she came on them. “Have you seen the foe abouts?”

“Sad to say we have not!” They would shout back, or express being glad of it instead.

That was the difference between green boys straight from the barracks and those who had fought ogres before, she guessed. They never called her by name, but knew they had not to run in fear of her. The Horasians relieved and swapped their stationed garrisons frequently, when they could, and had a good network of riders established to spread news, messages and commands at a reasonably quick pace.

Janna could have physically flattened any one of the outposts had she wanted to, but then someone would notice the flattened bodies and giant footprints where before a golden eagle standard had been rammed into the ground.

Many of the dug-in positions featured artillery as well and she wasn't particularly keen to get shot at again. Other than the war machines the Horasian army was much different from any Nostrian military. The latter had spears, the former pikes, twice or even thrice as long. There were very few shields in the Horasian army, much more plate armour, and many, many more crossbows as opposed to the longbows the Nostrians preferred. Indeed, she saw not a single conventional bow with the Horasian army.

The village in the north was not abandoned, because the Horasians had taken up positions here before the events in Thorwal that led to Hjalmar Boyfucker's raid. That didn't mean they hadn't tried, though. There were three dozen fresh graves near the village.

“They came for us six days past!” The old village elder told her when she squatted over the tiny collection of houses around a shrine. “Wanted our crops, they did, and make off with our animals and women!”

“We were fixed on the river.” Reported a Captain with a red sash around his chest, copper skin and thick black curls, somewhat like that little philosophiser Janna had met at Thorwal. “We didn't see them. It was dusk and they were on us before we even knew. Most of those in the ground over there are my men.”

“How many were they? Where did they go?” Janna inquired patiently.

“Hard to say.” He replied, bitter. “At last I formed a few pikemen in line to guard my crossbows. The quarrels saw them off but they had vanished before we could reload. Went into ditches, I'd say, and hid in the tall grass before moving into the woods again. Had they been any more we all might have died, I know that for certain. Pursue them we couldn't, for we had too many wounded men. If you find them, tell them Memnon of Iolaosopolis sent you. I wish I could see their faces before you step down, the way you stepped on my brother.”

The conversation had turned very awkward, very suddenly then and Janna was glad to turn her back to the village. The place was called Pitchburrow, for the stinking, smokey pond not far away where planks were laid out to harvest the black, sticky substance that served for shipbuilding, coopering and pouring it on to enemies from atop castle walls.

The officer had to be a Cyclopean from the Cyclops Isles, she thought, like that small, philosophising thrall she had met at Thorwal. Efferdopulos, or something like that, had been his name. Memnon's brother had likely been there where she first met the Horasians and crunched many of their tiny, nameless soldiers under her feet. She wondered how many of the faces she had passed today had lost kin beneath her. Hopefully not too many.

Looking for the attackers, Janna swung land-inwards on her way back. She had only her gut to go by for determining how far she had to go. Where there were no forests she had a great view, but if there were any Thorwalsh out in the open they were clearly hiding in ditches again. She tried stomping through the woods for a while. With her boots and jeans covering her skin she had no problems walking through even the thickest of trees. They uprooted and flew or yielded and broke, and whatever ended under her sole got crushed, albeit that none of it was the foe, or even human.

Most of the leaves were gone now, but that made the job of finding something on the forest floor almost harder. The fallen leaves were brown, as were the branches and the trunks of trees. When she moved too fast it was like an optical illusion, speeding before her eyes. She found a little hovel with a caved in roof, but kicking it over with her feet revealed nothing other than an old cat that hissed, meowed and ran away from her.

She went in zigzag patterns over the land, tore open empty farm houses, barns, sheds and sties, sometimes partly burned out, sometimes only in disarray. But she never found any people. Next to one larger farmstead she sat down and took a rest, basking in the unperturbed world. To some extent it might have been called idyllic. The birds and and weeds certainly seemed to think so.

The farmstead had a long main house, usually for people on the one end and livestock on the other and a hearth in the middle. That way, the cattle did not freeze to death in winter while one only needed one fire and the warmth of the animals added to warm the people as well. It must have smelled somewhat rank in there but that was not nothing one didn't get used to after a while.

There was a small shed, laid out with straw, probably a goat shed or pigsty. A hen house stood next to it, identifiable by tiny little ramps with entries for the chickens. The last building was a low, round hut with a straw roof, just like the longhouse, and a smoke hole at its highest point. No smoke was rising out of it, unfortunately, and when Janna whiffed at it she smelled only old and cold straw, no fresh fire.

“Is someone there?” She asked nonetheless, flicking the wooden door of the daub and wattle main house open with a crash.

The door flew out of its hinges and landed clattering on the ground. She giggled. It would have been sweet if someone had been home, she thought dreamily, imagining the things she could do to the inhabitants. It was a shame there was no one she could turn into a communion wafer just now.

But that didn't mean she could not imagine.

She took a careful look into every direction to make sure that she was alone before pulling off her shirt and undoing her bra. Her breasts spilled free, huge and heavy. How many had Steve said one of them weighed? She had forgotten. Two hundred tons, three hundred tons. It had to be somewhere in there, if not more.

She tried the henhouse first, leaning forward, lifting her left teat and taking a rough aim. The building was small and would be no match at any rate. She let her breast fall and watched the building shatter, getting smashed into the ground. She thought she heard a shriek before realizing that it had only been the wood creaking.

The little round house was next and she did it slowly, leaning into it as her tit sank through the roof until everything was flat and even with the ground. There had been some sparse furniture inside, but the low chairs and tables had broken and flattened with all the rest. The longhouse required two times, or two breasts at once which what she settled for. No one had been inside, so the only vertebrates she flattened were probably some mice hiding underneath somewhere.

She sat up and sighed. When she crushed with her bosom she could watch the act more from up close than otherwise. With her hands it would be even closer if she wanted to, but that wasn't as much fun since hands were tools evolutionary designed for killing, amongst other things. It simply didn't have the same feel to do it with her hands.

The trouble was that she had no one she could crush. Reluctantly, she shoved a hand down in between her legs, finding herself all worked up about nothing. She tried for a time with her hands, but alone and without toys it just wasn't the same thing.

She stopped, dressed herself and moved on, disgruntled. The village Pitchburrow was about twenty kilometres away from Joborn, a distance she had crossed in just about as many minutes. That was at a leisurely pace, though, and with stops here and there to talk to the soldiers or to marvel at things.

Eventually she found the road on her way back that would lead her straight up to Joborn from where she would go south to the other end of Sir Ruckus' lands from where she would then double back inland to complete her first patrol.

There were no travellers on the road but she once encountered a group of Horasian riders.

Horasian cavalry rode swift, formidably bred horses and were a deal different than any knights on horseback Janna had seen. They preferred sabres over swords and wore little to no chainmail. Instead, their armour was mostly uniform and made of steel plate that was often lobstered where it required to allow the wearer to move.

“Greetings men!” She called them. “Have you see the enemy?”

“Ney!” An officer shouted back and rode on.

The whole column passed her without another word.

Back at Joborn she lingered long enough at the southern gate for Sir Ruckus to seek her out again, and again he came on the back of his white horse with the black mane.

“I've been to Pitchburrow but haven't seen any Thorwalsh, my lord.” She reported to him, that tiny squirt in front of her boots' toes. “They were attacked a few days ago. But I think the villagers there are fine.”

“Are you as thick as you look to think me such a fool?!” He shouted up to her as ever. “I knew that! Now what about south?!”

Even though she had lost weight, Janna was certainly still thick, but that hadn't been what he meant. Queerly, this time, his rough, discourteous demeanour wounded her. She didn't have any way at hand to retaliate, however.

“I am going there now, my lord.”

“Good!” He shouted. “And then north again, after that! Let these wretches know who they are dealing with! If you open those huge eyes of yours, maybe you'll find them some day!”

“Yes, milord.”

She couldn't have said what was so disarming about the man. Perhaps the fact that he had a clear, immediate plan and spoke it bluntly. Leadership was an invaluable trait invariably in short supply anywhere.

“I will send the peasants back into their fields now!” He informed her further. “Best watch your step and make sure you don't tread upon them! I will have no wanton murder in my lands!”

With that he gave her a last accusatory look, willed his horse around and galloped back into his tiny town.

There was decidedly more forest south of Joborn than north of it and the road was running on the opposite side of river where she couldn't go. Farms were much fewer except for closer to the town, which meant that she could move faster. Occasional outposts were here too, but they seemed less frequent until she noticed a few that were embedded into the tree line to her right. She came by an abandoned village on the opposite side of the river, visibly plundered and sacked.

She passed it by after seeing nothing moving in there. By the second village she saw, there was a mucky pathway on her side were only a small bridge of land lay between a lake and the Ornib. Beavers were to blame she could tell by a half swept-away damn of small logs, branches and mud. The wet ground pulled at her boots but was never strong enough to really slow her, so she moved on unperturbed.

On the land bridge, directly opposite the village was a small, forested hill, and on it a castle, much to her amazement. Ruckus had not said she would find a castle here, she thought, until she realized that this was actually a ruin. The walls would have formed a very misshaped hexagon, had not the entire north side, west side and part of the south side been gone. The bergfried, round and with a wooden roof, was intact, however, as was a smaller version of it in the outer wall as well as two two-storied houses.

Needless to say, the Horasians had claimed the place as their own.

“This is the Otterburg!” A tall captain with a red sash explained upon Janna's request. “That over there is Beilstatt!”

There was a ford over the river on what once might have been a stone bridge. The village was fortified, albeit that its defences were in horrible disarray. It had wooden palisades on earthen dikes before a ditch, but the palisades were mostly gone and had partly been replaced with bushes. It even had wooden gatehouses with covered wall walks and a huge wooden tower commanding the ford, albeit caved in and partially collapsed.

The whole place looked frozen in time, as if there had been a massive war in which both places had been damaged, years ago, and then just left this way with people still living here. The houses on the Andergastian side looked too rich to belong into a village, meaning there had to have been some source of money here at some point.

In the middle of the village stood a huge, old stoneoak and some stone that was like to have inscriptions on it.

“Sir Ruckus said there were broken men here.” She told the captain.

The village had been plundered, to be sure. Pots, kettles, wooden bowls, singular items of clothing, everything was strewn around, thrown out in search for food or gold.

“Yes, that is so!” The captain confirmed. “They must have seen you coming and hid inside the houses. I'm glad it was only you they were so afraid of. When my men said the deserters were going mad I thought ogres would be upon us!”

'Only me?' It echoed in her head.

The remark was deserving of a dismissive laugh and sudden case of severe bruising trauma by virtue of being stomped into the ground underneath a gigantic foot. It almost irked her more than Sir Ruckus' insolent demeanour.

Instead of crushing the unsuspecting captain she smiled, however: “How many are there in the village?”

“Forty odd.” He replied. “We've had our eye on them ever since they moved in. They are remnants of some Andergastian host, ragged and starving. They seem to fear moving, as if the very prospect of leaving that barely fortified place scares them to death. I have doubled the watches in case they mean to make over the ford.”

Sir Ruckus wanted those men, Janna knew. He meant to cross the ford with his own men and arrest the Andergastian deserters before offering them to turn their coats. It was almost too good to be true. Forty! And right there, ripe for the taking, hiding in houses that she could pick apart as though they were made of paper.

She bit her lip. It had to happen.

Trouble was that she couldn't cross the river. But Beilstatt was so close that she could almost taste the fun she'd have with these tiny Andergastians, showing them what the term broken men really ought to have meant. She thought to ask the captain to move his forces over the ford and make Ruckus' offer in his stead. He could march them over to Nostrian side then where Janna could play with them.

But that would rob her of the pleasure of rooting them out of their hiding places.

“Tell your men to shield their eyes.” She determined. “What they're about to witness will be rather unsavoury.”

Surely, to whom ever held Steve and Christina there was too much depending on keeping the threat alive as that they would kill them over some runaway soldiers. Janna could feel herself getting excited when she stepped over the ford in one big stride.

She went methodically and slowly, starting with the nearest little house, completing the destruction of the ruined tower and then the next little house. All the while she kept an eye out for smart people who sought to leave the village while there was still enough cover to do so. She'd either step on one end of a building and then move her foot up to flip off its roof, or she'd tear the structure apart with her hands, whatever her gut said.

It was either wooden boards or daub and wattle, and none of it offered any protection from her.

By the time she found the first man she was on her hands and knees. He wore a white surcoat fringed in red and a green tree on his chest, black boots, brown britches and nothing in the way of armour. He was also unarmed, which came in handy for Janna's purposes.

“What are you afraid of?” She grinned at him while he crawled backwards from the enormous cleft she had torn into the house he hid in, crawling backwards until his head banged against the leg of a table. “I'm here to save you!”

He didn't believe her, choosing to hide under the table instead.

Janna pulled off her shirt and undid her bra again, eager to see what her wrecking balls would do to the tiny man.

“Come here.” She whispered playfully, snatching after him until she had his leg.

He came screaming, being dragged over the floor until he was in position.

“Hold still for a moment.”

All he could do was to scream even louder when he saw her tit descend on him, but promptly stopped when her flesh rolled over him like a bulldozer. Her breasts were soft, natural and not stuffed with any silicone as they were, but his struggles ceased almost immediately.

Janna smiled and rested on him for a little while, looking for runners. When she got up he was flat, firmly clinging to the smooth imprint her right breast had made in the ground. That got her wetter than the quickly flowing Ornib beside her, and she went on to look for more playthings immediately.

She found them, here and there, sometimes alone and sometimes in groups, sometimes armed, sometimes not. No one had the wits to run out of the village and into the woods, or if they had she never saw them. Scrawny and male to a tee they were, but otherwise quite diverse. Tall men, short men, blond, brown, red or grey hair she killed them all.

The odd comely lad considered edible she slurped into her mouth and swallowed. A pretty boy with short, dark hair whose face reminded her distantly of Steve went into her underwear where her hand soon manipulated him to please her while she crawled on one hand and one elbow finding more victims to smash with her tits.

She sat on two-storied buildings and flattened them under her butt along with any unfortunate soul hiding inside, imagining their terror and helplessness when she did so. She also imagined Sir Ruckus' face when he would hear about what she had done.

'Even in dark times we cannot relinquish the things that make us human,' he had said.

'I had a lot of fun, killing your little men.' She told him in her mind, panting. 'But you wouldn't know about that, would you.'

-

“Why, hello there, sweetling.” The man at arms grinned wickedly, barring Dari's way with a halberd. “Do you have business in King's Castle or have you come for me?”

He had sweaty, grey hair and yellow teeth, turning the suggestion into more of an insult than it already was. The two others, leaning against the wall, chuckled, eyeing her hungrily. All three wore Andergastian surcoats, the city kind, a green acorn with two leaves on white.

“In the castle.” She spat. “Step aside.”

She shouldn't have worn her dress for this, she reflected.

“Oh!” One of the other two seemed to recall her face. “She's with the ogres! It's this one we got to thank for the outlaws and barbarians in the city!”

That was plainly untrue, but she couldn't argue against it. She had presented herself as the leader of the outlaws and barbarians to the city guard, but ditched that position quickly afterwards when Sly told her they had best kept their names from becoming renowned.

The leering guardsman frowned: “Is that so? You?! Ha, wouldn't be the first time a wench snuck on me some things I didn't wanted!”

He made no effort to step out of her path. Dari had imagined it being easier. She couldn't even claim to have business with Varg because Varg wasn't in the castle.

“They're not in the city any more.” She argued instead. “So, what do you have to complain about?”

The Thuran Brotherhood men were outlaws. By rights, they should have been hanged or crushed to death. The disdain ran very much both ways and the Fjarninger Barbarians weren't much better, causing lots of brawls, petty theft, a few rapes and an axe murder following an altercation over a roasted hen. They weren't well liked in the city.

“Ha, but no thanks to you!” The guard scowled. “That ogre queen it was sent them away!”

The streets around were mostly empty. Everyone was in the market square, watching Weepke the bodyguard chop the herbs merchant to pieces with her glaive. Besides that, Varg was scheduled to crush the hand of another pickpocket as well as punish a baker who had cheated on the size of his loaves. Queen Effine and King Kraxl attended the charade to lend it the air of justice.

Nonetheless, attacking the men who guarded the only entrance to the yard of king's castle was a bad idea. Varg would hear of it, and then she'd have another person she could punish publicly, albeit that in Dari's case she was more likely to give the offender to Trundle, or keep Dari as a pet slave for herself.

But the guards did not know that.

“Varg sent them away, because I asked her to.” Dari said, soft but threatening. “She listens to me as her trusted advisor. Now, will you let me in, or shall I go tell her that you kept me from doing her business?”

It was just too sweet to see the three faces pale.

“Er, well, you said not that you were about her business!” The guardsman grumbled. “Open the gate, er, see that you make no trouble.”

Dari saw them off with a smirk as she went. The two men at arms guarding the entrance to the keep gave her another challenge, however.

“Halt! State your business!”

“Ogre business.” She replied briskly. “I'm here to see the prisoner. The Horasian Léon Louge.”

The two guards exchanged a look and gave her a nod.

“Aye! You can pass! I shall accompany you!”

Behind the gate to the keep there was a large corridor through which Varg and other ogrish guests to yesterday's feast must have crawled in order to get in. Any furniture in the way had been wisely moved without, but no one had thought to remove the decorations on the walls. On the wall to Dari's left, between two tunnelled staircases, was a hunting tapestry that had gotten almost ripped in half. The wood carving to her right hand, between two other stair cases, had somehow gotten crushed against the wall and cracked unseemly.

In the ceiling here, Dari could see murder holes in the torch light. If the gate was breached by an attacking force, this corridor could be flooded with death from above.

“This way.” The guard beckoned her to follow, taking a stairwell to the right.

King's Castle was immensely old, but that didn't mean that it wasn't big. It was dark, though, and relatively humid, featuring no windows that she could see and only arrow slits in the outer walls to let in the daylight. Since it was made up of four huge square towers with a great hall in their centre there were not many outer walls and so most of the light had to come from torches.

At the top of the stair and following a torch-lit corridor they came to a gallery with chairs where musicians had likely been placed during yesterday's feast. Below, the remnants were still being cleared away, including crushed furniture and stains of grease and gravy on the floor where an ogress had been seated.

It would have been interesting to see, Dari thought, remembering Bergatroll and Nagash in Lord Mannelig's hall. This hall was greater, easily allowing even the largest among ogresses to stand.

“Lord Mannelig, Lord Mannelig, why won't you marry me, for the plunder that I lay before you?” A mad, scratchy voice echoed in the hall.

It was Krool the soot-skinned fool, sitting sideways in the king's seat at the high table, playing a lute and singing Mannelig's song. The old, wretched lord was dead now, leaving no heirs but the next ogress who had married and crushed him to death. It seemed the world had not seen the last of his song, however.

Had he deserved what he had gotten?

The voice faded as soon as they were over the gallery and they entered another tower and took another flight of stone steps. Léon was a high-born captive, although no one knew of what family, and so they had given him and Thorsten a room rather than the dungeons. Dari had been there the day before, with Sly, to get the mad oaf out of there.

Speaking to Léon Dari had planned anyway, to finally learn what he knew about Xardas. It was the last meaningful thing she meant to do after sending another homing pigeon to the Horasians this morning, telling the lie about the alliance between Andergast and the ogres.

“Open up!” The man at arms accompanying her told the man in black who guarded Léon's door. “This one has business with him.”

The turnkey was one of Sly's men. That was new. Yesterday, it had been another man at arms here, wearing an acorn on his chest.

“Alone.” She added quickly, thinking what to make of this change.

Sly would hear that she came here for certain, raising questions. But Dari did not want to think about that. She was out of ideas. In her mind, she braced herself for engaging with Léon, which she had learned could be quite a hassle. Normal men spoke more or less outright. When they wanted ale, they called for ale. Nobles on the other hand often liked to play games with their words, a game at which Léon Logue was a skilled player.

The room was dank, windowless, the air stale. A single beeswax candle burned on a round table at the wall, shining a dim light on opened books, a bed with the sheets neatly bundled up, a few cupboards with cobwebs and unused items as well as a moth-eaten tapestry too mouldy to determine what it depicted.

Léon stood tense as if he awaited someone, but when he saw Dari he let himself down again upon his chair as if to signal that she was no threat to him.

'Has he awaited a headsman?' She thought. 'Or perhaps some torturer?'

It was still an open question which noble house he belonged to and he was keeping his mouth well shut about the issue. Dari was curious. If it would turn out that he had only fooled them into thinking him high-born then she would have hearty laugh.

“The air in here hasn't gotten any better.” He greeted her queerly, already playing his stupid game of words. “No window, not even an arrow slit. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

They could have given him an arrow slit at least, Dari thought.

His hair was immaculate, black and shiny as silk, bound behind his head in a ponytail. He had high cheekbones, a nose that was slightly too large and eyes that were wide open and awake. His beard needed tending to, but they likely did not allow him any blades. And if he still suffered from the injuries he had sustained his movements gave no hint of it.

She looked over her shoulder to make Sly's man close the door. She had to tread lightly here. The walls echoed and even though the door was thick and made of oak it was likely that anything above a whisper could be heard outside.

After it was closed she said: “I wanted to ask your advice on something. You are a clever man and learned, are you not?”

She was really out of ideas. If truth be told, there was little Léon could do for her, prisoner that he was. Perhaps it had been foolish to come here, and broaching the subject had just become a whole lot more dangerous. But Dari was desperate, so she must try.

“Oh, I have read many books,” he tossed shut a great folio on the table before him. “A Comprehensive Compendium of the Histories Andergastiae, for instance. Thrilling tome. Andergast was founded eight hundred and sixty nine years before Bospharan's Fall. Would you care to know by whom?”

“Woodcutters?” She smiled and shrugged, disinterested and insecure.

There were three chairs, his, one opposite him and one that was missing a leg. She took the whole one as her seat to be closer to him, so as to be able to whisper.

Léon's smile was endeared: “Yes and no! They were woodcutters, aye, but that was not the most notable thing about these men. They were some crew of Rateral Sanin the First, or Admiral Sanin the Elder, as some call him. In the year of eight hundred eighty before Bospharan's Fall he was named supreme Admiral of the fleet by Emperor Belen-Horas.”

There was a stoneclay cup on the table from which he took a swig.

“Oh, how forgetful of me!” He said, lowering the cup. “Would you care for some wine?”

“If you mean to recite the entirety of Andergast's history, then yes.”

“Guard!” He called. “More wine, and a cup for my guest!”

A moment later, the door rattled and the guard from outside came in, holding a lantern and the things Léon had asked for.

“Could you leave me the flagon this time?” The Horasian asked hopefully, but Sly's turnkey only looked at him briefly, coughed and went after filling both cups to the brim.

“Hospitality was never something Andergastians excelled in, I fear.” He offered the cup to her.

It was sour stuff, tasting somewhat as mouldy as the rushes on the floor. Léon seemed somewhat more eager to talk than she had expected, and that was not surprising, seeing as he had to sit here all day, alone, and only Andergastian histories to keep him company. Perhaps this room was meant as a form of torture, she contemplated. To a wake mind, a bleak place such as this might have been more cruel than hot iron pincers.

Dari did not care so much about his well-being as much as she cared about what she had come here for, however.

“In any case, uh,” he scratched his bearded chin, “Sanin the Elder...no one knows what became of him, even though he was a great man. Under his command, the empire conquered the Cyclops Isles. He discovered Cape Brabak in the south, Thorwalsh villages in the north. He sailed up Tommel, Ingval and the Big River, even as far as Ferdok, discovered Albernia in the process and later ensured supply lines for the imperial forces during what we call the Troll Wars.”

“What a man.” Dari slushed some wine around her mouth and swallowed. “How's that emperor called Horas, though, when it was in the Bospharan Empire? The Horasian Empire was founded after Bospharan's Fall, was it not?”

She tried hard to see a greater point emerge in the conversation, some lesson, some message behind the words. But if there was such a thing here then the picture had either not been put together yet, or she simply couldn't see it. Nonetheless, she knew she had to continue and wait for the right time to say what she had come to say.

“Wrong!” Léon grinned mildly. “The Horasian Empire is called so because of the name of the Bospharan emperors. Ever wondered why Gareth styles itself the 'New Empire', and Horas the 'Resurrected Empire'? This is why.”

“Hm.” She made, unsure what to make of it and even more unsure if it was any use to care.

“Belen-Horas was another remarkable character.” Léon went on. “A preacher by training, he one day declared himself a god in his own right.”

“They do that sometimes, don't they, your emperors?” She fell in.

He shot a glance at the door and laughed: “Oh, yes! But in Belen-Horas' day, the world was much smaller, as the discoveries of Sanin the Elder show. Under Belen, the empire expanded its reach exponentially which caused war with the ogres for the first time. One might say that the founding of Andergast contributed to the conflict with the ogres. Ironic, isn't it? All these years? Although, one might just as well argue that it was inevitable.”

“Was Albino king of the ogres at that time already?” Dari asked, making pleasant conversation loudly before falling into a hasted whisper. “I've come to speak to you about Thorsten but the guards mustn't know!”

“Uh, no, I believe not.” Léon replied after a brief pause of studying her with eyebrows raised. “That was a later war, of which there were quite a few. To be honest, after my studies I am not even quite sure that Albino is an ogre. He might well be some demonic creation for all I know.”

Then he whispered and asked: “Is ought amiss with him?”

“Might well be.” She said aloud, sipping. “He's gone now, though. Banished from this world by a druid spell. Sly means to get him killed! He means to send him out to pirate the Ingval with a band of outlaws and Fjarninger barbarians!”

The entire story was too cluttered, too complex to thrust into a few hastened whispers, she feared. But she had to do her best.

Léon's eyes studied her some more, narrowing with mistrust. There was something in them she found strange. He did not seem surprised, for one, but that did not have to mean a whole lot. She had found it near impossible to read the Horasian before and it hadn't gotten any easier in the meantime. To the history lesson she listened only marginally, in case some truth was hidden there, but mostly to keep up the disguise for the men outside.

“He was banished the last time. But something broke the forces of which his prison was made.”

For all the gloominess in Léon's voice, the pale ogre king had never been much of a hassle to Dari, much unlike the murderous enormities of Janna and Laura. Varg on the other hand was a dangerous affliction, albeit to a somewhat lesser degree. To Dari personally she might be more dangerous yet, just like Trundle. Not to mention that, once unleashed fully with a lot of support behind her back, she might turn out just as evil and destructive as the two titanic girls.

“Then let him! He's a Thorwaller, pirating is his life and blood!” Léon whispered into the grave pause before lecturing on. “In the year three hundred and twenty four before Bospharan's Fall, Nostria and Andergast ended the War of Tears, making peace with each other for the first time. This was because ogres were at their door step once more. The Troll Wars had driven the ogres near to extinction, but in the grim, forbidding lands beyond the Stoneoak Mountains they rebuilt their strength.”

“The Ogre Skull Steppe is somewhere at Phexcaer, isn't it.” Dari recalled. “So that's whence it got its name. It is suicide! They will never even get past Joborn! And Thorsten is mad!”

“Aye and it is no mistake that the nameless wastes north of of this kingdom used to be called the Ogrelands.” Léon replied gravely. “He has his moments, no? Our big friend is more resourceful then he leads on. By the year two hundred fifty four before Bospharan's Fall, a mighty clan of ogres under Nargazz Bloodfist had lain siege to this very castle. All seemed lost for the kingdom and so a bargain was struck. The humans made weapons for the ogres in exchange for them to lift the siege and move on. Thus, the first Ogre Storm commenced.”

Andergast had a whole quarter of smiths. Dari could well imagine it being able to arm an ogre army in time. The thought of Varg now being de facto in possession of Andergast was greatly unsettling in this light. There was the lesson she had been looking for, perhaps, and the implications were grave. Sly meant to use Varg to sort out Janna and Laura. The question was who then would sort out Varg. This was important as much as anything.

“How did it end?” She asked, troubled to keep up with two conversations at once. “He is mad! And the Horasians have outposts all along the river! They will kill him! He's running into his doom!”

“The outposts can be circumvented! The river is wide and Thorwalsh can carry their longships on land!” Léon argued sharply before speaking louder again. “Well, despite arms and armour, Nargazz lost a battle at Wehrheim for the first time, seven years later. Three more years later, she was dead, slain by village mayor Nasildir of Trallop, or so I have read. Her clan was great in strength, but the ogres are disorganized by nature, and were largely disunited in those days. She was the first who aimed to create a kingdom, the Kingdom of North, and it lasted slightly more than a hundred years after her death although no apparent ruler is known. Then it took another hundred years to purge all the dispersed clans and warring hordes. The last ogres were driven back beyond the Shadow Ridge in the year twenty seven before Bospharan's Fall.”

That was too awfully close as to not coincide, Dari thought.

“What do you want to me to do?” He added with a quick glance at the door.

'He wants me to go.' Dari thought. 'He's told me his lesson and now he wants me to leave him because it makes him as uncomfortable as it makes me.'

The whole thing was thoroughly unnecessary. Sly had not actively done anything until now to prevent Horas from getting its supplies to the Notro-Andergastian border, so she saw no sense in starting to do it now. Hjalmar Boyfucker was more effective than anyone had anticipated but with Jarl Olaf gone and Salza retaken by the Nostrians there was nothing to stop the Horasian Army from landing their ships at Salzerhaven, transferring the goods onto smaller vessels capable of rowing up the Ingval and bringing the goods directly to Joborn from where they could be distributed along the front.

Some of those supplies were destined to land in Janna's and Laura's bellies, Sly had argued, so this was too good an opportunity for making trouble to pass up. Thorsten, when he had a clear moment, was very eager to accommodate, the fool. The Thuran Brotherhood and Frundengar Hammerfists likely had no idea that they may be embarking on a voyage straight into Boron's realm.

Dari could hardly have cared any less about the outlaws and barbarians. Both Badluck Robin and Aromobolosh had been great nuisances when she had taken over the forces to ride to Andergast. But Thorsten did not deserve to die. She felt that Sly had been greatly exaggerating when naming the change in the Horasian supply situation their second problem, back in the Red and Black. The Horasians were in the dark. She had dispatched another pigeon today to fool them.

She needed Léon's advice and she was not yet done.

So she asked: “And what happened twenty seven years later? He saved your life, you wretched coward! You cannot let him die!”

Léon smiled, genuinely this time.

“Bospharan fell.” He started out simply. “Why, though, depends on whom you ask. Certain seems that Empress Hela-Horas declared herself a goddess, upon which Raul of Gareth led a huge rebellion of enraged Midlanders and Tulamids against the throne. The empire was weak, having battled first the ogres for two hundred years and then the Diamond Sultanate, very much seamlessly afterwards. I have saved his life before. We are even. And isn't it his greatest wish to captain a ship again?”

“Ha, there it is!” Dari faked a laugh. “Another divine monarch! He does not deserve this! What have we saved him for then, if we let Sly cast his life away now?!”

Léon turned his face into a mask of disinterest and nodded: “Some historians say Raul simply...won. The Bospharan military tactics were ancient at that point. Hela-Horas had twenty thousand legionaries and two thousand seasoned Preatorian Guard. She had no archers, though, and no cavalry, not even auxiliaries. These tactics were useful against desert Novadi tribes, northern barbarians, even ogres, not to mention the Phalanx tactics those prancing fools on Pailos still practice today. But Raul had knights; rabble, light horse, skirmishers, archers, light foot, heavy foot and three dozen wizards. He had but half of Hela's strength but his army was better, more motivated and he himself was the far superior tactician.”

She waited for him to speak to the other issue, gesturing until time had run out: “And what do other historians say?”

He shrugged: “Others, well...others say the empress made a pact with several arch demons and beseeched the Nether Hells for help against the winning Garethian separatists. Hordes of monsters inhabited the battlefield and would have taken the day had not Praois, Efferd, Rondra and Ingerim descended from the sky and murdered them all...wearing golden armour, of course.”

His tone suggested that he was sceptical of this account and once again he said nothing with regards to Thorsten.

“When did Albino come around then?” She asked to keep going. “Please, I need your help! Thorsten needs our help! He's mad!”

Dari had thought them to be friends but now that judgement was starting to become clouded in shadow. Perhaps Léon was just another arrogant Horasian lordling who did not give a rat's arse about anyone other than himself. That might be the key, though, but it was dangerous to suggest and highly risky to pull through with.

“That was the Second Ogre Storm, some four hundred years later.” Léon replied and shot another glance at the door. “Shortly after the Wizard Wars. You will have heard the name Rohal the Wise before?”

Dari nodded: “He was a wizard and an emperor and a very good one. What if we free you? Does your name carry enough weight to keep the Horasians from killing him? Maybe we can persuade him to sail somewhere else?!”

“And do you know the name of his adversary as well?” Léon studied her with renewed interest but did not care to comment on her suggestion.

“Borbarad.”

The conflict between the white wizard Rohal and the black wizard Borbarad was so much the stuff of folklore that Dari didn't even know if it hadn't been made up by mummers, singers and storytellers. It was certainly a classic as far as tales went.

“Well, suffice to say most of what you have heard in children's stories and jolly stage plays is true, albeit that the details are perhaps a bit too...enigmatic.” Léon drank a sip from his wine cup, glanced at the door and continued. “Borbarad's experiments and rituals reputedly gave birth to many strange creatures. I now believe Albino might have been one of them.”

'Wizard Wars,' Dari finally realized, wondering if Léon would soon come to speak about Xardas, the topic that both of them knew still stood between them. She wasn't sure if she liked the timing, though. She had come to receive cunning advice on how to save Thorsten and now she wanted to plead for his life, saving Léon from captivity in the bargain. If only he would reply.

“Thorsten get's his life and his ship, Horas gets their supplies and you get your freedom! Can we do this, tell me!” She was whispering desperately, but found herself completely ignored.

She liked Sly, but he was wrong on this. Whether he would forgive her was doubtful. He might not care all too much about a Horasian hostage with uncertain value but the thwarting of his plan might be something else. And Varg did not forgive, not in a thousand years. If Dari did this she would have to find a new place to belong, after killing Furio Montane, the evil war wizard.

“Now, it is common wisdom today that Borbarad was one of Rohal's many alumni, but that is false.” Léon lectured on before changing the subject as Dari had feared. “Instead, they were both students of the same man.” He paused abruptly and heavily. “The man who is not Jindrich Welzelin.”

“I'll tell you everything about Xardas that I know!” She whispered hastily. “But you must help me in this!”

The beeswax candle on the table guttered at the mention of Xardas' name, or maybe Dari had just whispered a little too sharply. Léon seemed torn, pressing his lips together and glancing again at that gods-forsaken door.

“Aye.” He finally breathed, so ominous that it bordered on awkwardness. “I will help you.”

A stalemate of looks ensued between them. Dari wanted to know what Léon knew, but she didn't know how much of her own knowledge she should reveal. She hardly knew anything about this Horasian, she reflected. If knowledge of Xardas could still be dangerous to anyone she was uncertain.

Léon downed his cup of wine and suddenly called upon the guard for more. Dari emptied hers as well, sour stuff though it was, using the pause to bring her thoughts in line. When their cups were full and the door barred once more, it was he who finally made the first move, upending the pale of his knowledge all at once. It proved to be quite a disappointment, presuming that it was true and all he knew.

“Xardas has been an interest of mine for a long time.” He began, neither bothering to hush his voice nor speak particularly loudly. “No books that I know of ever mention his name. Yet, in many events through history there seems to be a pattern of certain hints, signs of the man's doings, or at least whereabouts. What seems to be impossible to determine, however, is the most crucial question. What does Xardas want? Do you know, per chance? You are a creature of his, are you not?”

Dari almost laughed at the silliness. All the thoughts she had spent, the worry, the secrecy of this conversation and the absurdly constructed arch into the topic. In the end the whole thing turned out to be the dull interest of some bookish lordling, likely with too much time on his hands. But if he could be useful to her, then so be it.

“I was.” She said flatly. “He's dead. I saw him die. Sir Egon put an arrow through his head. It was after Albino was banished and I cut Vengyr's throat for him. Xardas wanted to conjure the both of us out of there, but nothing happened.”

Léon gaped at her, taken aback. It wasn't on account of Xardas' death, though.

“Did Xardas try to save the pale giant?” He asked.

“No. He wanted Vengyr to succeed and then kill him. I think he was performing some sort of ritual as well. Egon's squire, Hal, was slain. Xardas said the lad had the emperor's blood in him.”

“But why?!” Léon insisted in desperation. “What does Xardas want?!”

“Given that you have read all these books you can probably answer this question better than I can.”

She took a lazy sip from her cup, wondering if this would take much longer.

The outlaws and barbarians had already left the city yesterday to go to Andrafall and retrieve the three Thorwalsh longships that were beached there. They would take on provisions in Andergast today and then start their suicidal journey downstream. Thorsten was with them since he was the only one they had with any degree of experience at commandeering ships in battle.

“I have...read anything I could get my hands on.” Léon stared at the door for a moment. “The only discernable pattern is that there is no pattern to his actions. One time he aids the one side and then the other side the next, all over. If he ever does or did anything, that is.”

Dari shrugged: “Sounds like he's trying to keep the balance, no?”

“You mean, like Vengyr? Why kill him then?”

“I think Xardas believed that Vengyr was doing more harm than good. He called him a fool numerous times in his writings. His death was meant to accomplish something, but the old wizard seems to have gotten more than he bargained for. Oh! I do recall now. He said it was all in order to save the world.”

Léon's face was a mask of deep thought, then it turned to horror: “You mean to tell me all this time through history he was the force who kept the world intact, who made sure no side ever weighed too much on the scale and tip us all overboard?”

“Might be.” She bit her lip. “But if that's so, we're likely in for mayhem and chaos now that he's dead, wouldn't you say?”

He didn't reply, only went through his shiny, black hair with a hand.

Outside it would be past noon now. Dari wondered if the day's executions had already been carried out or if everyone would still be at the market place. It seemed that with every sentence Varg inflicted, she became more talkative. At least that had been the pattern of the last few days. She was becoming quite apt at giving droning speeches and she was quickly falling in love with her voice as well.

“According to what you have read, what would it mean for Xardas to be gone, truly?” She asked, more in an attempt to get that stupid, terrified look off his face.

“A dissolution of dichotomies, perhaps.” Léon replied, pondering. “Nostria and Andergast. Black Tobria and White Tobria. Gareth and Horasia. Serfs and lords. Freedom and slavery. Good and evil! Who can say?!”

He was deeply troubled, clearly. Dari wasn't so sure, feeling like they were pointing at shadows in the dark with their musings. Xardas' death could mean bloody well anything, or nothing.

“What if whenever one side threatened to tip the world over and plunge it into darkness, there was an intervention of one kind or another. Other interventions might have been...might have happened before any such overwhelming threat was obvious.”

“Like when the royal Garethian family burned, leaving a child on the throne?”

It was meant to show how pointless and absurd this idea was, but it didn't hit home.

“Perhaps. Or perhaps there had to be made interventions because of this. Would you describe him as a sinister soul?”

The frantic hypothesising was reaching Hesindian proportions at this point. Dari decided she wished no longer to be part of it.

“No.” She said firmly, hoping that it was the last of it.

She was getting rather frustrated with this pointless, nonsensical waste of time.

“Perhaps we should keep a watchful eye for opportunities to keep things in balance then.” Léon concluded, scratching his beard. “It seems important in times like these.”

“Times like these.” Dari scoffed, echoing him while getting up. “You mean another Ogre Storm. Meanwhile, two titan whores trample entire kingdoms under their heels. What's a balance you would strike there? See that none of them wins the bloody war so it can go on forever, until mankind has been ground to pulp between them?!”

The whole idea was so stupid that it infuriated her even more than the pointless musing. Léon sat upright in his chair, glancing at the door and chewing at his lip as though he meant to eat it.

The more she contemplated, the angrier Dari became, no longer caring if she was heard.

“What's so horrible about the idea that one side wins so we can start to move forward again?!” She flared after a pause. “If one side had won, perhaps we might have been strong enough to deal with the ogres and titans! But no! We have to be divided against ourselves, because balance!”

She shouldn't waste her nerves on this one, she decided. Léon was done and useless besides. Likely he wasn't even high-born, after all, just a charlatan. She almost expected him to tell her that it wasn't all so simple as she made it out to be. But he never did.

“We shall see about that.” He said instead, looking up at her. “What time of day is it?”

“Past noon.” She shrugged, looking at him as she would look at a fly in her soup. “Or close enough. What's it to you?! You're about as useful as a crippled eunuch. I've decided I do not need your help.”

The words tumbled out of her before she could think. Images of what Varg and Trundle had done to her flashed before her inner eye, unbidden. She had been unable to speak about that experience and had done her best to bury it somewhere but now that she was wroth it all spilled forth from its tomb.

A sob babbled from her mouth and her eyes filled with tears. It was entirely unlike her.

'Am I broken?' She asked herself, wiping away the wells. 'Am I done?'

She wanted to go.

“Well...” Léon nibbled on his wine cup and made a face, pressing his lips together. “Have Thorsten's ships arrived?”

This was a waste of her time, Dari decided. He should have asked her when and how she would get him out of the castle and how she would get him onto Thorsten's ship. The question raised an uncomfortable truth, however. It was already too late, unless she took him with her now. Thorsten would sail today and it was past time his ships would arrive.

“Might be.” She shrugged again, fighting with her tears. “They are due to arrive today. But...”

'But it is too late to come up with a plan now.'

But again, Léon glanced at the door.

'Has he been thinking the same thing all this time?' She thought. 'No...he can't have.'

He was very still for a moment, straining to do...something. Then he gave a queer cock of his head and rose. There were footsteps outside, then voices.

“Who are you? State your business!” The guard who had brought Dari to the room demanded.

Sly's man cackled: “Miss your cell, eh?!”

The footfalls were heavy and unmistakable. Dari spun, then looked back at Léon.

The Horaisan lordling picked up his bedroll from the bed, neatly bundled up, reached inside and pulled out a club, the leg of the third chair. Somewhere he had found a nail and driven it through, turning it into some sort of pick axe.

Outside the brigand gave a shout: “Oi! Put that away!”

The door rattled violently in its hinges and a series of grunts and screams came through. Then there was a moment of silence more eerie than anything else. Léon smiled at her, giving a cocky wink. Dari almost lost the ground beneath her feet.

The heavy oaken door flew open with a crash revealing two men on the ground, empty eyes staring into spreading pools of their own blood. But that was far from the most horrible thing that presented itself. In the frame stood an enormous knight in grey armour, bloody axe in hand, a great sword on his back and a bastard sword at his hip. His visor was a crude, flat thing with slits for eyes and holes for breathing, but the way it was wrought with those hollowed cheeks and a short stunt of a nose it looked too much like the face of a skull for comfort.

The man wore brown leather lace over his chainmail shirt and a wolf pelt over his right shoulder. Dari bent down and fumbled beneath the dress for her blade in panic, before the realization hit her in the face like a fist. She stood there, stupid, dagger in hand.

“Come!” The man in steel bellowed and Léon went to him, bedroll over his shoulder.

“Best come with us.” Léon advised, half turning back to her. “And quickly!”

“You are mad!” She said aghast. “What are you doing?!”

Thorsten's voice rang through the skull-faced visor before his face: “What's she doing here?!”

It was so mind- and reckless that it beggared belief.

“Varg!” Dari shouted at them. “The king, the queen! The guards, the ogres! Have you lost your wits?!”

Thorsten gave a shrug: “Everyone is in the market square. They're killing people again.”

The executions.

“See, I'm helping you.” Léon chuckled at her, lightly, as if it wasn't utterly insane what they meant to do. “Wasn't this what you wanted?”

'Was this what I wanted?' She asked herself.

Her plan would have had more grace, to be sure, if only she'd had one. But in light of the timing this was probably the only option there was.

What guards were left posted at the castle were likely not even too much of a problem for Thorsten, not in this armour anyway. Firehand and the quarter of smiths had done an quick, crude job, but the steel plates that covered Thorsten's body looked impenetrable to be sure, and that mask made the young brute look like something out of a nightmare.

The castle was not very far from the market square, however, not when counting the ogresses' long legs in any case, and today Weepke would be there too, to chop the herbs merchant to pieces. Time was running short.

“Come with me or no, I'm going.” Thorsten turned and walked out the door in quick, heavy steps.

Léon went right after him. Dari contemplated ramming the dagger into his back, but she couldn't. What was Léon, anyway. Likely as useless as Thorsten, when it came down to it. Some unimportant lordling's third son, most like. Thorsten was the son of a dead man, ruling a dead people. If he wanted to go off and kill himself then he bloody well could.

Or would they, even. Her head was spinning. The putrid air in the room was choking, especially when it mixed with the fresher air from outside. She was still crying, she realized, absurd.

'Why am I crying? Wasn't this what I wanted?'

She ran after them, skirts swirling. Upon the gallery over the great hall where she caught up to them, they encountered two startled bowmen, likely on their way to the top of a tower.

“Who are you?!” One asked perplexed. “And where are you taking that prisoner?!”

“Raaah!” Thorsten screamed in their faces before simply shoving the first man over the balustrade with his left arm.

He was strong like nothing human, having been rowing the entire time he had been bundled up and fighting any time he could. He had gone mad, though. This was a bad idea, after all. Dari had to stop them.

“Hafthor!” She called. “Hafthor stop! Be a good man now, Hafthor! Put down the axe!”

The second man dropped his unstrung longbow and went to one knee. He tried to block the blow Thorsten dealt him, losing his arm as well as his life in the process.

“I don't think we have any time for that now.” Léon turned to grin at her before moving on.

Dari didn't understand. The great hall was still being cleared and the rasping scream of the first bowman who had fallen to his death roused the alarm, servants running in shrieking terror. They had to make haste now or everything was lost. On the stair downwards Thorsten slew another man at arms. This one had carried a spear, almost useless in the confined space.

Outside, the armoured Thorwaller slew the next man, beating his spear point out of the way and splitting his opponent's neck. The gates to the yard opened and the three guardsmen from outside confronted them, albeit none too eager to attack.

The grey-haired lecher snarled instead: “To here and no further you wale-worshipping cunt!”

He had let Thorsten in, Dari recognized. Except what ever had ridden him when he had done that remained unclear, and he must regret it now. Likely, Thorsten had told him some lie, as Dari had. Queen Effine should have made sure her castle guards were smarter, but that didn't matter because she'd soon end up under Varg in any case.

Thorsten tossed his axe to Léon who caught it in the air. Then he reached over his shoulder and pulled the great sword free.

“I will shove that sword so far up your arse it will come out your mouth, boy!”

It was short for a two-hander, but heavy-bladed, like something a headsman would wield. Somehow, Léon had been expecting an executioner after all, except not one who would execute him. The Horasian stood with the axe and his improvised club at the ready, but he had no armour on.

A light drizzle was falling, wetting Dari's hair, and just now it started getting bigger, large raindrops patting against the steel of Thorsten's helm. He stood for a moment longer before he charged.

Dari had never seen a man fight like this. The men had moved into formation, shoulder to shoulder, so they had three points holding him off instead of one. The Hetman's son stepped wide to the right, then left, bringing the blade around in one big, sweeping cut, cleaving the tips of the two spears and the halberd at once. There was a brief moment during which the shocking realization befell the defenders. The next blow cut the first man's head in two, removed that of the second and stopped inside the the third one's chest after severing his arm.

With a single stroke, Thorsten had just slain three armed men.

If he wasn't brought up and killed by any of the Horasian outposts along the river he might yet stand a chance to succeed in carrying out Sly's plan. But if he still meant to heed Sly's plan was an entirely different question, if he had ever meant to heed it, in fact.

From the castle to the harbour was a short road, not very far. Dari half expected to see Sly. He had foreseen something like this, surely. Else why would he have posted his own man in front of Léon's door.

“Did you kill him?” She asked desperately, struggling to keep up with Thorsten's longer legs.

He was so huge and she so small that the top of her head barely overreached his ellbows.

“Sly? Ha, should have!” He grunted back through his helm.

That was a relief. Sly was a good man, even though he had been committing a wrong in sending Thorsten off. The big young man had likely tricked Sly into bousing heavily yesterday, after Dari had left in fury from the Red and Black. Sly was an amiable fellow and loved to drink, but the Thorwalsh were infamous and unrivalled in how much they could stomach. Today, like as not, the old, small raider would still rather beside himself.

The three longships were tied up at the docks, crewed with Frundengar Hammerfists and Thuran Brotherhood men. Three men at arms were there as well, the green acorn with the two leaves on their shields and surcoats. It wasn't hard for them to see that something was off, as any civilians on the street had seen as well, beating a hasty retreat.

Thorsten was drenched in blood at this point, running down his armour with the rain.

“Who are you?!” One of them demanded, unable to place this knight in this armour and no sigil. “What is the meaning of this?!”

Dari was strangely aware of how misplaced she must look, wearing her stupid dress and holding her stupid dagger. Léon did not look much better, wearing simple, woollen clothes and carrying two weapons and a bedroll under his arm.

Thorsten cocked his head and made the joints in his neck crackle noisily: “Do you want to find out?!”

The Andergastians exchanged looks and frowned before backing off, making the way free.

“Cut the lines!” The young Thorwalsh bellowed with a voice much older than himself and the outlaws and barbarians hastened to obey.

They should have objected, asked why he was drenched in blood. But they never did. They might have been confused, Dari reasoned, or they were scared, as she was. Or they were in the picture, part of the scheme.

Over on the south bank of the river, in the Ingval Fort and around it, where the ogres and ogresses in their camp. By now, the rain was so thick, however, that their camp was barely visible and most of them had been put to logging besides. The weather was a lucky coincidence, but even if there had been no rain would an ogre intervention from the camp been hinging on a variety of factors. The Ingval ran wide and deep here, and if an ogress had noticed to her it would only have been three little humans boarding a ship.

Two minutes later they were already on the Ingval and Dari could still not quite believe what had come to pass.

“Put your backs into it, you men!” Thorsten hollered and laughed, standing at the back of the ship and manipulating the rudder.

The Fjarningers made for good oarsmen, it seemed. They were going with the current as well and had a strong wind at their backs. Varg might still catch up to them if she cared to. But if she did, she would have to fight in the river, and in the rain that was now falling as a current of its very own. It was risky.

“Here.” Léon, rolled in his bedsheets, came up to where she cowered and handed her a sheepskin to keep warm under.

“Is she still sulking?” Thorsten grinned, tossing his head to make his wet hair fly.

It had all been a ruse. He wasn't mad, or at least not mad enough to forget what he was doing. Likely, Léon had been the one to conjure it up but she had to hand it to Thorsten to be able to stick to it convincingly. It had fooled Sly, which meant a lot, if anything. Even more, she would not have been surprised if Léon had made Thorsten raise the idea of pirating the Ingval to cut off the Horasian supplies in the first place.

The confusion in her head cleared a little and she started to get her thoughts in order.

“What are we doing now?” She asked, wrapping herself tightly into the fur.

She herself still meant to kill that war wizard, if she could. It seemed balance was the best way for humanity after all. If either of the two gigantic adversaries was eliminated by the other, the consequences might turn out to dwarf whatever was going on the moment, in the long run anyhow.

“I'm going home!” Thorsten shouted into the wind and rain. “I'm going home! Can you hear me, father?! I'm going home!”

The Fjarningers liked his fervour and hooted at their oars, while the outlaw bowmen exchanged looks under their cowls. Arombolosh, the other enormous brute, was commanding the second ship, she saw. The third ship Thorsten must have given to Badluck Robin.

“Your home is flat!” She screamed at Thorsten. “There's nothing left of it! Sly said so!”

He looked at her, still smiling but it was Léon who spoke.

“You had it all figured out, you know?” He laughed lightly. “I was beginning to worry our plan was a little too obvious. We will go to Joborn and I will broker save passage for these ships.”

“I will take from Hjalmar Boyfucker's men whom I can find on the coast.” Thorsten added, one hand on the rudder, “I will scour the coast of Windhag to rally pirates to my cause as well. 'Tis not winter yet. More pirates will return to Thorwal before last and I will rebuild!”

Dari shook her head in disbelief: “Do you know that the Horasians you are now siding with are responsible for the trampling of your homeland? They sent Janna and Laura north to sow death and destruction amongst your people!”

Iron stubbornness was on the youth's face.

“Oh, I know.” He said. “And they will receive their justice when I am done rebuilding, never fear!”

Léon still smiled, knowing that Thorsten was not like to live and see the resurrection of Thorwal. Wood and stone they would find aplenty, but there was no way to repopulate so large a land within a singe lifetime.

Dari was still doubtful that the Horasians would just let him pass too, no matter what Léon had promised. But she didn't know if she even cared any more. Thorwal was out of the picture for decades. Janna, Laura and Varg were the immediate threats.

Suddenly she saw that she had overlooked a crucial aspect of freeing Léon, having been too preoccupied and become emotionally invested in Thorsten's well-being. The Thorwalsh and the Horasian had clearly talked after Thorsten had been freed, which might have been why Sly had posted his own man at Léon's door. They had hatched out this plan, or finalized the details of its execution since the idea to have Thorsten act mad must have been established before anything else. If Thorsten had told Léon that she meant to kill the war wizard, then there might be a noose waiting for her at Joborn.

If Léon was an honourable fellow he might see to it that she was spared since she had saved his life when taking him and Thorsten into Lauraville. But if he had any loyalty to Horas, he would certainly see to it that she would never get to pull through with her mission.

She stood and made her way closer to Thorsten, full of bad thoughts.

“How did you manage to make these men follow you?” She asked first, needing a way into it.

Thorsten chuckled: “The Thuran Brotherhood did not like the notion that their new employer was sending them to their deaths. They were in it for the gold, but if truth be told these outlaws have no belly for war and dead men have a hard time bedding whores. I will give them Kendrar, if the Nostrians haven't taken it back yet. My father once won it on a bet. Did you know that?”

Dari didn't care whether that was true or not.

“And the Fjarningers?”

“Are eager to become Thorwalsh.” He shrugged. “I will give them a place in my Ottaskin as I must, same as I will the Hjaldingers and Gjalskerlanders if there still are any. We are the same blood, after all.”

She leaned closer for her final, most important question, but before she could ask he turned his head and gave her a soft and friendly look: “I have not told Léon about the witcher. You have saved me and I am in your debt. I would never do anything that would put you in harms way.”

'Other than ruining the thing I had with Sly,' she thought bitterly.

But as amiable, adorable and cunning as the old brigand was, she could not escape the fact that it was now demonstrated that he was capable of failure too, not to mention that being in league with the ogres had made her skin crawl at night when she was trying to sleep. She wondered what she was becoming. As an assassin in Gareth, queen of the underworld, she had never flinched at killing anybody, be they the subject of a contract or simply in her way. She was not like that any more.

“I do hope you still mean to kill him?” Thorsten raised a brow at her. “It is dangerous, aye, but Sly was right about him. We cannot let such as him live.”

She nodded and lowered her gaze.

“If you need a place to go, come north.” He concluded, his face back toward the river and rain running down it, washing all emotions away. “It's cold and it's hard in winter, aye. But we will rebuild. And when we're done, may their false gods have mercy on them all.”

-

Janna got hungry at noon, which was bad, since she had agreed not to have lunch from now on. After coming back from her first patrol she had occupied herself peering into Joborn for a while, in search of anything interesting.

It had started to rain apocalyptically a while ago, so she huddled in her blanket to keep from getting wet. People, as much as they could, were keeping indoors, but sows and piglets wallowed happily in the mostly muddy streets. There was less livestock than there had been the last time she had paid attention to it, which meant that she had either eaten the lot, or Ruckus had given his peasants animals with which they could raise new herds. Probably both.

The knight came to her again, on his horse, with a large blanket over both of them.

“You are back much more quickly than I expected!” He shouted against the rain. “Have you gone at all?!”

“I have.” She told him, wondering when he would learn about the things she had done in Beilstatt. “I have been to Pitchburrow in the north and...”

And nothing. She winced. There was a village roughly at the edge of Ruckus' lands to the south, on the Nostrian side of the Ornib but she had never gone that far. Instead, she had amused herself at Beilstatt, on the Andergastian side, wiping out the sleepy little village and murdering the Andergastian deserters that had sheltered there. Her masturbatory aid, a fit, little man with short hair, was still alive, stored in her panties for another round after she would lay down to sleep this evening. More than that, she had two men in each toe of her socks, but their states of health were hard to determine.

One in her right boot had become toe jam when she scrunched a little too hard and was subsequently no longer able to keep himself from sliding under, so he was dead for a certainty. The other one in there with him was unmoving but still tugged between two of Janna's toes.

In her left boot there was one quite the same, but his companion still moved ever so slightly every now and then. She had put them in there because she had climaxed before killing all the deserters. Forty were quite many when one had to look for them piecemeal like that and bulldozing people with her breasts required some time and effort to get into position for, although the act itself was just physics.

After Beilstatt she had made her way inland back to Joborn, forgetting about the village on the south side of the river.

Ruckus scowled at her: “You didn't go, did you?! Ha! Just as I expected! Well then, up with your enormous arse and do your work, giant!”

She sighed deeply, peering around out of the blanket around her face: “Not in this rain, my lord.”

“Yes, in this rain! You could have done it right the first time and now you've brought this on your self! Like as not, this rain is sent by the Twelve to punish you, only they have neglected to consider that they are pissing on us others as well! Any damage by this rainfall I shall have to hold you to account for as well, and don't you give me that look!”

And once again, she was astonished. He had to have daughters, she figured. His harsh way of scolding was much too effective on her for that not to be the case. He reminded her of her father when he was wroth, which was a dangerous thought if there ever was one. Janna had hardly wasted a single braincell on her family back on earth. Why should she, she was a university student after all, used to only seeing her parents once or twice a year at the very most.

This time around she would not see them for much longer, which would be hard when the time came. But she wouldn't start with that now. If she got homesick now, that would be stupid.

She banished such contemplations firmly from her mind and wanted to formulate a response, when Sir Ruckus eyes fell onto her left boot, poking from under the blanket.

Janna couldn't hear it, but she could feel the man moving. She scrunched her toes, trying to break him, but he slipped out, ending on top of her toes instead, wiggling like a worm.

“Is there a person in there?!” Ruckus called in alarm. “I could swear I heard shouting!”

He got off his horse in a heartbeat, took the reins and moved over before Janna could think of anything to say.

“Yes!” He roared after a moment and drew his sword. “There is a man in there!”

He meant to cut him free, Janna realized, and so she drew her foot back under the covers. It came as it had to and she was forced to pull off her boot and take the man out, delivering him to the knight who would not sheathe his blade just yet. While Ruckus gaped at the Andergastian deserter in the mud she used his inattention to rid herself of the unconscious one, throwing him as far as she could into the forest off to the east.

The little rat spilled everything about Beilstatt, albeit from his rather limited perspective. He was a teenager of middling height and unspectacular to look upon, with a mop of slick, wet hair the colour of mud.

“I hid, milord!” He shook and wept. “I hid while she...while she...she was murdering us! She destroyed the houses, I could hear it. I wanted to go but I knew the ogres would get me then! And I could hear her kill our men! I heard her say that we should be grateful, that none of us would ever get to see or touch teats as large as hers! So I looked, milord, and I saw her use them...use them to bury men alive! She crushed them!”

The recount, brought forth so theatrically, somehow served to rekindle the flame in Janna's loins.

“I begged her not to kill me, milord! At first she said she wouldn't but then she...then she...”

“Enough, boy!” Sir Ruckus raised a hand and looked up at Janna. “You stand accused! What do you have say in your defence?!”

It was time to rearrange the power dynamic in this relationship, Janna decided. If truth be told, a part of her liked his gruff reproaches, maybe precisely because they reminded her of her father. But Ruckus was wrong. If he thought she would face consequences for this then he was mistaken.

“I killed enemy deserters.” She shrugged. “And I answer to the Horasians, not to you.”

Actually, had she wanted to, maybe she could have just crushed Ruckus then and there. The rain had driven everyone inside and the torrential rains made it hard to see and hear in any case, at their scale much more than at hers. All it would take was a little slip.

He was blind with rage as she had expected.

“I was going to levy these men!” He roared. “I specifically told you this!”

She had an idea: “Oh, that was Beilstatt! I apologise, my lord, I never knew...oops.”

She couldn't hide her grin, which he saw too.

“Liar!” He pointed with his sword before turning to the deserter. “On your feet, boy! I will take you to the old eagle and we will see what he has to say about this!”

As annoying as this turned out, the fun she had at Beilstatt was worth it, she decided. Also, Ruckus couldn't have the boy.

“No.” She said, snatching the little soldier off the ground with her right hand.

“Milord!” The young man screamed in terror. “Help me, milord! Don't let her take me, no!”

She put him in her mouth and swallowed, sending his tiny body down into her tummy for digestion.

Then she gave Ruckus a grin: “He was my prisoner, milord, to do with as I pleased. And just now it pleased me to eat him.”

His bald head turned from red to purple and he started screaming incomprehensibly at her.

That made her chuckle cheekily: “I'll see about that southern village, my lord. Best hope I don't overlook it in this rain. It'd be a shame if I trampled all over it, mistaking it for a puddle, no?”

And so she pulled her sock and boot back on, stood and skipped southward, mud squishing under her soles.

The peasants had been sent out, she soon saw, but the rain had forced an early interruption on their voyage back to their farms. For every male she spied there were two or even three females, and only one man in five was fighting age. They huddled under trees, or under their carts or wayns if they had any, watching her pass in tense silence.

Hadn't it been so wet she might have inadvertently sat down on a little group and made a pause, but the weather didn't allow for that unless she wanted a wet, muddy butt. They hadn't gotten very far either, and soon she was alone again, count or not the occasional outpost.

The Horasian soldiers had to have grown used to Nostrian rains by now, and so they were, watching the other river bank from tents or under wooden stands they had built. At the little lake she took the way around rather than the land bridge, passing by the castle and the remains of Beilstatt altogether.

Nonetheless her feet sank into the ground and before long her boots were filled with water. The last unmoving man in her right boot, if he was still alive, would be drowning in a mixture of water and sweat. That got her to think.

The village she soon arrived at was a bleak, unremarkable place with some unattended fishing lines in the water and empty fields all around. Smoke was only rising from three of the houses she saw, enforcing the impression of emptiness. When she wanted to step closer she heard a shout from below to her left.

“Don't go near!”

She halted and looked and had to spy inside a massive weeping willow to find a small Horasian position, dug into the river bank and featuring a ballista. There were seven men, five artillerists in simple gear and next to no armour and two colourful figures in puffy jerkins and shorts, leaning their hands on great swords longer than their own bodies.

The Horasian army relied on standing forces on the one hand and mercenaries on the other, she knew. Many of these hired men worked alone and were embedded with light infantry or cavalry units as was seen fit. Then there were sell-sword companies, bands of mercenaries forming one or indeed several regiments with different types of equipment for different purposes.

This would turn out an example of the latter variety she could already tell by the colourful attire the swordsmen wore, featuring grand feathers on their hats and stripes of green, yellow, white, blue, black and red all over their clothing.

“Don't go near the village!” One of the artillerists reiterated the warning. “They got the Bloody Difar in there!”

“The what?” She frowned, confused.

“Bloody shits they got.” A bearded swordsman informed her. “It's like the Runny Difar, only bloody.”

“And deadly!” Added the artillerist. “Don't go near or it'll get you too!”

“Thanks for the warning.” She said while giving the village an uncomfortable glance.

Long before the advent of germ theory, modern medicine or proper sanitation, diseases were common and hazardous. If she herself could effectively contract diseases at her size was unclear. Incubation times would certainly be much longer for her, but it might be that once a disease broke out she would be in trouble. It certainly wasn't worth the risk.

“Are they dying over there?” She asked, turning back to the willow.

“Like them flies drowning in a honey pot.” The swordsman confirmed. “We had cases too and sent 'em in there. Lads want to snoop after 'em wenches, hehe, but will they catch one before the Difar catches them?”

Difar had to be the name of the disease, or else it was the name of some demon or something similar. The symptoms sounded like some infection of the intestines, like dysentery which could be caused by bacteria, viruses and parasites. Dysentery had wrecked Irish American railroad workers in the nineteenth century, leading to a preference for Chinese workers on part of their employers because they did not contract the disease very often. They didn't drink river or well water directly but boiled it first in order to cook tea.

If it was dysentery here then everyone present was at risk, however.

“Do Maraskans ever get the Bloody Difar?” She asked, trying to confirm her diagnosis.

He shrugged: “Bugger me if I know. Best ask 'em yourself! Our company cooks are Maraskan lads, Rock Woo, Dirty Dsâng, Babeface Bao and them lot!”

“And where would I find them?”

Their men were all around the village, she learned, and a deal further on as well. While she walked on, peering here and there into the woodwork, a man approached her like two men compiled into one. He was swaggering because he likely had a high opinion of himself, and hobbling because he had a wooden leg. Likewise, he was clad in puffy, slashed garb for extravagancy and huddled under a thick carter's cloak to keep the rain off. He even wore two hats, leather over satin.

“Arr, when I saw your great shadow stalking through the rain I almost shit me self!” He greeted her, loudly and amiably. “Lucky me, I was already shitin', ha!”

“Shitting blood?” She asked in reply, dreading his answer.

“Oh, haha, not as yet!” He bowed. “Travian di Faffarallo will not die shitting!”

That was a relief. If this section of the Horasian line broke down because of disease, it might cause even more problems than they already had with the impending food shortage.

“Well met, Travian di Faffarallo. I am Janna. You might have heard of me.”

The man had a luxuriant white beard that hid most of his windburnt face. In terms of weapons he only carried a thin longsword at his hip.

“Oh, I have!” He inclined his head once more before snapping it up. “And you of me perhaps, as well? They call me the Saintslayer, haha! It was me disembowelled the empress pretender Silkya Firdayon!”

Janna was unsure how to answer that, but strangely glad she found herself speaking to someone who didn't fear or hate her and had something to say as well.

“And what do you do here?” She asked to keep going.

He cocked his head: “Arr, holding the line, as it were, hehe! Glinting gold for dull work!”

Janna didn't quite understand: “What do you mean?”

“Ah, there are no ogres come through here?!” He explained. “Now south, in the darkness, aye, that's where! In grim, dark forest where the trees stand so close you can hardly see them woods, ehehe, there we found two and grim beasts they were ere we slew them!”

He seemed to remember something and hobbled two steps closer on his wooden leg: “But don't you tell that now, eh? Is paid good coin for ogre heads, and needs no one know whence they came from!”

“My lips are sealed.” She tittered, amused. “You look different than most other Horasian soldiers I've seen. Are you the sellsword captain or something?”

It would be awkward if he bowed or inclined his head again and so he swelled his puffy chest instead: “I have the honour to be condottiere of the great Bloody Brotherhood, at your service! Now that we cross paths may I say that I am grateful to be on your side!”

She had to chuckle at that, but she also had to do something about the disease in the village.

“Would be so kind as to show me to your Maraskan cooks?” She asked. “Um, Rock Woo, Dirty Dsâng and Babeface Bao?”

He gaped theatrically: “Do you feel a hunger?! Why, our provisions are mean and maggoty but far be it from me to refuse a friend!”

He meant to show her on foot which she determined to take far too long so she placed a hand on the ground to give him a lift. She had figured him stone old on account of his beard, but he hopped onto her hand as almost as agile as a young man.

“I'm a bird!” He cried, holding on to his two hats when she pressed up and raised him with her. “I am the true eagle!”

He had some difficulty orienting himself from on high, but after a short a while he got his bearings. The way was south and through the woods there, growing and often overhanging the river. The Ornib ran faster here which should have been an indication that its water was better. Fast running water carried lots of oxygen, making anaerobic chemical reactions less common.

The rain had lessened somewhat while she had been speaking with Travian di Faffarallo, but his personality was so enticing that she only noticed after he fell silent, enjoying the view from her hand.

“All this forest we have to guard.” He beckoned with a bejewelled hand. “All this vast emptiness.”

“How do you manage?”

He shrugged and expanded on how many men he had, which was about eight hundred. Horasian artillery was next to useless in the forests, and from here on it was practically all forest they were guarding. The Ornib ended another while upstream, but from there the border made a sharp turn toward a place called the Thuran Lake. The south-west bank of that lake marked the eastern most point of Nostria.

They did not go near that far, however, but farther than she had expected, crossing a small sidearm of the Ornib before they arrived. It was certainly a coincidence that they had met at the village. Maybe Faffarallo had come to examine how bad the Bloody Difar was ravaging his men, only the men in the willow had said that the sick had been sent into the village as some measure of quarantine.

Janna would certainly have to make sure that Furio only drank water that had been brought to a boil, sooner rather than later. She should have done that from the start, but when one was one hundred metres tall and had to fear almost nothing it was rather easy to grow forgetful of such things. That made her wonder if she had been too harsh on Laura before.

'Perhaps.'

The sellsword camp did not stick out for being well organized or cleanly, she noted when they arrived. All manner of things seemed to simply lay about, men were sleeping next to the wineskins, clay jugs or bottles they had gotten drunk on, and tents were thrown up half-heartedly and with no particular order.

The cooks tent was a pavilion in greasy grey, spotted with all sorts of other things. From inside rang shouts.

“Rock Woo, how did you burn the rice?! Rock Woo, you big oaf, it is swimming in water, Rock Woo!”

Janna levelled her hand with the ground and let Travian di Faffarallo disembark, which he did as agilely as he had gotten on. After calling their names, three little Maraskans in dirty cooks clothes stepped out, ogling at her.

“I've not come to taste your cooking, although I am sure it is quite exquisite.” She started, but stopped when all four of them, including the captain, burst out roaring with laughter.

They were a slapstick bunch, to be sure. Babeface Bao was the head cook, fat, almost hairless and with a face that left no doubt as to where his name came from. Rock Woo, evidently, was as stupid as a stone, but tall and strongly built. Dirty Dsâng was tiny, even among tinies, and always spitting.

“Has either of you ever come down with the Bloody Difar, or the runny kind?” She asked, crouching over them when the laughter had died down.

“Well, the runny kind I get only when I let Rock Woo wash the vegetables.” Babeface Bao gave to account, scratching his hairless head.

Rock Woo laughed at that and then glanced at Janna as though he had already forgotten the question.

“Me neither,” said Dirty Dsâng and spat on Rock Woo's foot.

That was a good sign but could mean bloody well anything. Janna started to feel that there would be no way to be sure.

'An empirical study into epidemiology with a sample size of three.' She thought. 'My professors were right to let me fail.'

“Show me your teeth.” She ordered them and they reluctantly obeyed.

They were all very, very brown, but none appeared to be missing. Shame was that she didn't know the word for tea. Was there even such a thing in this world? There should be, she concluded, seeing as everything else from earth seemed present. That was an empirical observation she had almost patted herself on the back for, before she remembered everything that was present here that was not present on earth, like magic.

“What do you drink?” She asked next, forgetting to specify non alcoholic beverages.

Dirty Dsâng spat and went over to where a stoneclay bottle stood atop a barrel by the tent, uncorked it and took a healthy swallow. Then he offered the bottle to her, one hand at the neck and one beneath the bottom.

“He wants you to drink, but I must warn ye.” Travian di Faffarallo explained. “Their snaps is one of the worst will ever burn a hole in your throat!”

Rock Woo laughed and licked his lips.

She took the bottle gingerly, careful not to crush it, and poured the contents onto her tongue. It tasted somewhat like turpentine smelled and burned like acid, revolting and painful at the same time.

“I mislike it too!” Babeface Bao confessed with visible embarrassment. “I much prefer my tea!”

Janna couldn't be sure so she had to ask for it as well, confirming that the word meant tea indeed, something like green tea in this instance and almost cold.

“Condottiere, I believe I have a solution for you regarding the Bloody Difar.” She said. “Stop shitting in the river, for one. I know you think the water will carry it all away but the demons of disease breed more merrily in water, believe me, and dying is worse than enduring the stink. Best bury your shit altogether.”

“Hm?! Arr, aye, that we will do, if it helps!”

“Second, remove all dead things from the water, if there are any. This is very much for the same reason. And three, start drinking tea. Just boil the water before you drink it if you don't like the taste or lack the supplies. It is essential that you do this, or the disease will spread.”

He chewed on that one a while longer but finally gave a curt nod.

“And now, please, I would like something to get this awful taste out of my mouth, or else I'm going to eat Rock Woo!” She concluded, rubbing her tongue against her teeth.

It was mind-boggling that such a small amount of the liquid could change her entire oral flora so completely and for the worse. Everything felt wrong in there and the awful taste lingered and lingered and would not go away.

“Ah, it would improve our grub,” di Faffarallo allowed, “but the man still owes me thirteen coppers from dice, so I say no!”

Babeface Bao came back out of the cooks tent a moment later with a larger platter full of crudely chopped pork items, skin and fat still on and looking less appetizing than dogfood. Janna poured it into her mouth nonetheless, slushing it around to mop up the taste which the salty pork did marvellously.

Then she thanked them all, promised to come back to check on them and waved good bye. She made her way back the longer route to Joborn, thinking that she had strangle enjoyed her visit to these sellswords. They were interesting, somehow, and she was bored. And there had been ogres here too. If Janna could catch one she would have a lot of fun with it.

Most of all, though, she was eager to see if her advice would help curb this outbreak of disease. If so, she would undoubtedly have done something good. Yann Redhand and Master Zaum crossed her mind then, and she regretted getting rid of them. It had been an ad hoc decision, made hastily and imprudently. She had thought the though and done the deed, crushing Zaum under foot in an instant. She might have still spared Yann, the tiny barber surgeon, but once he was in her panties she felt like if she took him out she would have to apologize to him, which would be awkward. And if truth be told, she wouldn't have been surprised if he understood her killing him, in his own, little, submissive way. Nevertheless, killing him had been especially wrong, no matter how bad she had needed that orgasm to take her mind off Furio.

She was half way back to town, still in the middle of the woods, when she realized that she had forgotten to inquire after the village's name. That made her laugh, but she wouldn't turn back around now.