“It all boils down to force, no matter if it’s a kingdom, a dictatorship, a democracy or a freaking people’s commune. Force is at the end of all authority - and you are simply never going to have a world without authority. At least not unless you want it to effectively dissolve in dog-eat-dog barbarism.”

Laura had an arm around Janna’s back, lifting her up with a shoulder. Step for step for step they were going towards Andoain and the Nordmarkener border. The army would use the road they were on, certainly. But Laura had grown weary of this road.

The world was covered in the snow that was still falling relentlessly. It was little more than powder to the two giant girls, of course. It melted away in their breath. Nevertheless was the tiny world around them cast in white, pristine and untouched in this part, because there was simply no one travelling.

“Dog-eat-dog barbarism is exactly what you want to have.” Janna objected. “And just because there is force at the end of every rule doesn’t mean that all rules are the same. You’d have to be like a cynic or a complete idiot to believe that. Or fucking both.”

Debating was fruitless, Laura sensed. She hoped that the Nordmarkeners would knock some sense into Janna. Some cold, harsh reality, that was what was needed here, surely. She hoped she’d get to watch her try to reason with the tiny knights and soldiers as they rammed they lances into her boots.

Roughly the same thing had happened at Ludwig’s Keep, she recalled. Janna had tried to argue there as well, and then turned out to be the perfect, beautiful and wonderfully evil monster Laura had loved so much. She still loved Janna now, but certain aspects of her character had become incredibly annoying.

Visibility wasn’t very good in the snow but Laura was actually grateful for that. If Praiodan of Whiterock unleashed another holy flashbang grenade he would end up much less effective, or else he might even end up blinding himself the way it happened when one turned on high beam in the middle of heavy fog.

That was what Laura hoped for, anyway.

If they got blinded a second time, she didn’t know what they would do. Franka had told her to ‘whack her opponent on the nose’ but if things would turn out that way was totally unclear. Janna was having none of it anyway, not even in terms of what-if scenarios.

Perhaps Laura should have been more staunch and insist on caution. But as it happened, she was slightly tipsy. They had ordered the wine before deciding to go, and they did not want to waste it.

“How do you feel?” Laura asked timidly to finally make some nonconfrontational conversation. “Does your tummy still hurt?”

Janna shrugged: “What do you think, yeah, it fucking hurts.”

Janna had never been one to swear as often as she did lately, Laura noted. Somehow, it seemed to put a hypocritical air to her new morality. That was only more annoying.

‘It’s not my fault.’ Laura wanted to object but couldn’t without having to open another can of worms, including the fact that it arguably was.

She didn’t want to go over it again.

“Would it help if we somehow got the medicine from the space ship?” She asked instead. “There are first aid packs in the suits, right?”

Having the suits might be a good idea as well, she noted, if only to add another layer against the cold, or at least to have some spare clothes. Things didn’t dry in rain and snow after washing, which would soon make their clothing situation even more disgusting than it already was. She should have started to think about this much earlier, she reflected, only they had almost never entered that room with the stasis covens again after waking up in it.

Jake was in there, rotting in one of the covens.

‘Interesting.’ She said to herself in her mind. ‘I had all but forgotten about that.’

She shook her head to get the queer thought out of there, no matter how true it was. She hadn’t really known Jake to begin with. He had been their pilot, and then he had been dead. She and Janna had suddenly been huge giantesses in a tiny, medieval fantasy world. The order of events had worked out the way it had. There were many missed opportunities along the path they had taken, there could be no doubt about that.

Janna stopped and looked at her, then shook her head and continued walking.

“Ogre country now.” She said. “We can’t go or they’ll kill Steve and Christina. I’m already better than I was. I think it’s gonna be okay.”

‘The suits, though.’ Laura thought again.

They would be good to have. It was frustrating. Somehow, she felt like her hands were becoming tied more and more. She couldn’t really tell how or by what, though. Likely, as ever, it was a combination of things.

‘We should never have left our ship.’

That was Janna’s fault, her stupid deal with the Horasians that in the end had gotten them only little more than the medieval equivalent of canned food. This was the wrong place and time to say such a thing, however.

Suddenly, Janna gave an ‘eek!’ and froze in place where she was. This was preceded by an ‘eek!’ on the ground and a soft crunch that was definitely more than snow.

“Did you step on something?” Laura asked, peering down through the powdery snowflakes drifting to the ground.

“Fuck.” Janna closed her eyes and bit her lip, not daring to do the same.

“You crushed someone, didn’t you.” Laura grinned.

Doing it accidentally had to be the first step in normalizing it again.

“Can you check if they’re still alive?” Janna whispered, still not looking down.

Laura chuckled: “Don’t piss yourself. You heard it crunch, if they’re still alive you better put them out of their misery. Move your foot.”

The brown leather boot hovered off the ground and twisted aside. Red snow lay beneath, a splotch messed up with pink bones and messy grey fur. If there was a person they were crushed beyond recognition, and there had definitely been a person judging from the scream.

“Got yourself a donkey rider.” Laura reported with a smile. “He’s mush now, though.”

Or was he.

“Please don’t kill me!” A voice revealed the contrary, and also that the donkey rider had not been a he at all.

The figure emerging from the snow next to Janna’s footprint was a fat thing in the most absurd clothes Laura had ever seen. There was a brown, broad-rimmed leather hat and a leather mantle, all stooped over masses of ugly looking furs. It sort-of looked like a fur ball with limbs what she saw there.

“Oh, no, you missed her.” Laura rolled her eyes. “Let me fix that real quick.”

“Fuck, no!” Janna turned and gave Laura a shove that sent her stumbling.

Instead of crushing the unlikely traveller, Janna crouched and scooped her up.

“I am very sorry for crushing your donkey, little one.” She explained. “I honestly had no idea you were there.”

‘Hollow and dry.’ Laura thought bitterly.

There was truly no more boring a thing than this do-gooder-ism.

“It wasn’t my donkey!” The woman on Janna’s hand called out, terrified.

“Laura,” Janna cocked her head, “isn’t this the girl that was with us, the one from the village?”

“Dari?” It was, Laura saw when she finally came close and the hat and fur cap were removed. “What the hell, she looks like a trapper...baby.”

The tiny girl plopped down on Janna’s palm, slowly calming.

“Where you successful?” Laura asked pointedly.

Janna interjected: “Successful with what?”

If Dari had still been on her way to the Nordmarkener host this would be not as much an unfortunate happenstance as Laura had initially believed, because now, if it came to blows, she would be able to trample the Nordmarkers without having to worry about crushing her tiny assassin.

Dari nodded, however, ignoring Janna: “He’s dead! I stabbed him in the throat!”

Then she had gotten out, she recounted in a hurry, only the snows had almost killed her. This dissolved then into a mad tale that Laura did not quite understand.

“Wait, wait, wait.” She shook her head, trying to wrap her mind around it. “That black-skinned fool guy we are looking for, the guy who gave you to the inquisition, he actually saved you? How did he know you were here?”

“I don’t know!” Dari replied, shaking.

Janna turned her head to Laura: “Who is dead?”

Her tone already made it clear that they shouldn’t have ignored her. Janna could get as angry and vindictive as anyone, and no one knew that better than Laura did.

“Oh, come on!” Laura complained a minute later after Janna berated her for having Praiodan of Whiterock killed. “You can’t possibly blame me for that one, he was a threat to us and also he was part of the evil inquisition! I didn’t even kill him myself!”

Janna’s nostrils were flaring with rage in turn.

“And how am I gonna make peace now, huh?!” She shouted. “Oh, hi there, fellas. Uh, how about we give peace a chance after we’ve just sneakily murdered your main guy?!”

She was starting to gesture with her hands which put Dari in danger. But when Laura said as much, she only grimaced hatefully at the girl and tossed her over a shoulder like some peace of trash.

Laura barged forward, hitting Janna with her elbow so hard that she went down. She managed to catch Dari in mid-air by a hair’s breadth before she herself crashed headlong into the snow as well, beating up an explosion of snow dust.

“What the fuck, Janna!” She cursed, for the first time genuinely angry now. “You almost killed her!”

“Why does this keep happening to me?!” Dari cried queerly in Laura’s hands.

“So what.” Janna stood and dusted herself off. “She killed that Praios priest, right? She’s a murderer. Give her to me and I’ll squish her like a bug.”

She held her hand out, dead serious.

“Are you fucking mental or something?!” Laura got to her feet as well, fuming. “You can take her from my cold, dead hands!”

Janna looked at her with hate sparkling in her eyes. Somehow, Laura felt that the consideration of attacking her played out for real in Janna’s head. It was disquieting to say the least, but Janna seemed to decide otherwise and just continued stubbornly along the road.

“I have no bloody idea what’s gotten into her.” Laura told Dari under her breath. “Are you hurt?”

Dari was still crying, dissolved in tears, but shook her head all the same. Laura closed a fist around her, pressed it to her chin and breathed into it to get the freezing young woman warm.

“Janna, we have to fucking talk about this!” She demanded after finally catching up. “What just happened there?”

They used to be so light with each other, Laura remembered, like nothing could ever get in between the two of them. That wasn’t true, in retrospect, they fought all the time, but it had never felt this severe before.

“What’s there to fucking talk about?!” Janna snapped. “She killed the guy!” She kicked a snowdrift by the road to splatter it. “There’s my peace now!”

Laura shook her head: “This was a shit idea from the beginning, and none of this is Dari’s fault! You can never have peace with them, Janna. There simply is no such thing!”

That was just a guess, if truth be told, but it seemed true enough to her. And regardless of her words Janna still kept walking away from Honingen rather than back to it.

“The Nordmarkers are at Andoain.” Dari said then as Laura’s hand opened. “Ordhan Herlogan he…I mean to say, he was forced to feast them there while the rains were pummelling their army.”

Caia Herlogan’s father, Laura remembered. She didn’t really care too much about him, but Caia seemed to be somehow connected to the Red Curse, so she did not want to kill him. That meant she couldn’t destroy Andoain.

She should have taken Janna there earlier, she reflected now. Seeing the cruelty of the Baron’s reign might have changed something about her nasty peaceful attitude problem. Janna was beginning to sound like a hippie, or something worse, and was just as hypocritical. She would have killed Dari had Laura not leapt and caught the tiny girl.

“Hakan Praiford.” She said loudly into Janna’s back.

Janna froze, then turned. She and the inquisitioner had had a screaming altercation of the same nature, Laura had learned.

Janna’s eyes were narrowed to slits: “What about that fucker?”

“I can kill him, right?” Laura asked in turn. “I want to put him on trial tomorrow. A big thing, because he hurt Dari.”

Janna’s face hardened as she shrugged: “The world is better off without him.”

Laura smiled: “Exactly, and just the same is true for Praiodan of Whiterock. By what Furio said about him, I’m guessing he was an even worse fundamentalist than Hakan, a complete fanatic. Actually, now that I think of it, the fact that he is dead might be the only thing that makes peace possible. The Nordmarker Duke listened to him. He was the war hawk, so to speak, or in this case more like the war griffin.”

Janna stood there, dumbfounded. Her rage had been blind and dumb, misdirected. She should have cried and thanked Laura for saving Dari. But she only pursed her lips and gave a nod.

“Let’s go then.”

“That’s it?” Laura demanded, not walking. “No apology to Dari or anything? You almost killed her.”

Janna gave a pained smile, took a step towards Laura and stretched out her hand from under the blanket.

“Give her to me then. I’ll apologize.”

“No!” Dari squirmed in Laura’s grasp. “No, please!”

She was frightened onto death even though she couldn’t understand any of the words they were speaking. It wasn’t exactly necessary anyway. The way Janna looked into Laura’s eyes was frightening.

“Forget it.” Laura shook her head, closed her fist and went.

It would be a truce after all, it seemed, if such a thing was possible. But now she had to keep Dari save from Janna who was behaving erratically to the point of seeming unhinged. Something was clearly going wrong.

-

The trees so stark. Shed thine leaves. The garden is under siege. The stone-faced war magician speaks. This holy man. The alchemist.

Ephraim O. Ilmenview, who introduced himself precisely as such, was a tall, haggard, old man who cared little about any sort of conventions. His sparse hair hung from his skull in grey wisps, his fingernails were perilously long and his grey robe dirty and threadbare. Bare, also, were his feet. He simply did not wear shoes and what went for his fingernails was even more pronounced on his toes.

He had founded the mages college of Honingen from a circle of private tutors, so he was certainly capable. The school was without a guild at its helm, though incorporation into the Grey Guild had been underway prior to the dissolution of all guilds in the Garethian Empire. But back then the college had come under scrutiny by the Ordo Defensores Lecturia, or O.D.L., because Ilmenview stood accused of having dabbled in necromancy.

“Influence is my field, my dear colleague.” The old man told Furio in the street, awkwardly stepping around cobblers working at damage caused by a giant foot. “Hence, I know a thing or two about how to fend it off as well.”

The college had been vandalized by a mob and Ilmenview taken into custody by the inquisition. With Hakan Praiford’s arrest, he was free again. Furio did not know if he could entirely trust the man, however.

“How large would such an amulet have to be?” He asked, following the barefooted man’s path. “How much arcane metal would be needed for the alloying?”

“This, I must confess, I do not know.” The old man said without looking, hastily putting one foot in front of the next. “Our colleague Corvinius Corinthis might, however.”

Furio had never heard that name.

His speech was laboured, having to keep up with Ilmenview’s long legs: “Who is he?”

“Oh!” The old man laughed. “He was my visitator.”

A visitator was sent to a college for purpose of investigation, Furio knew. Corvinius Corinthis would have been the one who was sent to the Honinger college after Ilmenview was able to disprove the allegations of necromancy at trial. This meant that Corinthis was a member of the ODL, which was disquieting since the organization was said to have at least partially transferred into the ranks of the inquisition, same as the white guild.

Furio had not spoken to any of his colleagues in some time and he was getting anxious.

“Here it is.” Ilmenview ushered him to a case of stairs leading below to some cellar. “Our apartments are humble, but we are making due.”

It was a rats’ nest, Furio found it best to describe it as when he entered. The earlier rains seemed to have flooded the cellar to some extent, although the water had been carried out again. That left everything still wet, however, and the small fire smouldering in the hearth could drive out neither wet, nor chill, nor mildew.

In terms of people he spied a middle-aged man on a stool, draped under blankets and staring at a wall while drinking from a basket-wrapped stone-clay bottle. An older woman sitting on the floor looked up when Furio entered, her face so hollow that her cheeks looked as though they had caved in.

The other three figures in the room were somewhat in the same state. No young ones were about, having no doubt abandoned this hopeless place. Furio found himself a little nonplussed.

“We dare only go out at night.” Ilmenview said softly when entering behind. “We have little coin for food and firewood. What you see here are my fellow teachers. The visitator keeps to himself.”

A long, bony finger pointed Furio to the back where a door was with rusted iron hinges and unmistakably worm-eaten wood. He did not understand why wizards would live this way, and it could only be under the pressure of the inquisition that this had come to pass.

“The inquisitor has been arrested.” Furio told the room, loud and purposefully with confidence. “Albernia is now a part of the Horasian Empire.”

Whether or not purges were going on in his own homeland, Furio could not reliably have said. It seemed to him, though. that mages were a valuable asset, and if put before the choice Laura would certainly agree with such a proposition, as certainly as Janna would, no doubt.

The head of one fellow wizard looked up at him curiously from the shadows. But no one spoke and the rest seemed as apathetic as before. Albernia was renowned amongst educated folk for being a mythical place of many wonders. It was for this reason that there were laws against witchcraft in place in many locales, Havena being the most prominent.

That wouldn’t explain this reaction, though.

“It’s neither queens nor emperors of whom we are fretful,” Ilmenview explained thinly, “but our neighbour, the man at the corner of the street, the whore on her windowsill, the orchardist bringing his apples to be sold upon the market. Our fellow man believes us witchers, and it were the churches that have convinced him of this.”

The door of Corvinius Corinthis’ room swung open, revealing an immaculately dressed man in polished boots, grey velvet doublet and pantaloons. His hair was dark brown, almost black, oiled and slicked back.

“And can you blame them, my dear colleague?” The visitator said crisply into the room. “You, who you yourself stood accused of necromancy?”

He did not wear robes, Furio noted, but at least he had stuck to his colours.

Ilmenview gave a sigh: “I have disproven these allegations conclusively. Is there never an end with you? How often must I do it ere you believe me?”

Corinthis snapped: “You have disproved them before a counsel of your peers! What of the common man you name, hm?! One day, there was an evil warlock in his midst, and on the next day all of it was false news. How is he supposed to sleep at night?”

The visitator had not slept well himself, Furio could see. Despite his immaculate appearance, there were dark rings under his eyes, signs of grief and worry. The cellar had just become a deal frostier, so Furio tried to warm it up.

“Our powers are queer and frightening to the common man, aye.” He agreed. “To summon a blaze of all-consuming flame from thin air. To speak voices into someone’s head. To close grievous wounds with what looks to be mere a gentle touch. These must be truly terrifying powers to behold, especially to those bereft of them. It was for this imbalance that the guilds were made. A white guild to fight for good. A grey guild to not fight at all. And a black guild for all those who would not bend their knee to compromise.”

“Mh, this adeptus speaks the truth.” The ODL’s visitator conceded too early, not waiting for the turn in Furio’s speech.

“This I do.” Furio smiled while taking out his pipe from his sleeve and stuffing it with Stoerrebrandt’s tobacco, a display of wealth and privilege as much as normalcy.

He was running low, however. Soon he would have to get new pipe weed. He wondered if it was possible to ever smoke too much of it, like a punishment for committing a very pleasurable sin.

As he wanted to begin the rebuttal a cough caught in his chest, rendering him unable to do so.

Instead, Ilmenview grasped the word: “No one ever spoke of dissolving the guilds, my dear colleague. But have not the actions of the inquisition effectively caused just this? What is natural good to do when faced with supernatural evil? What are the hopes and prayers of the common man?”

It was almost as though the man was speaking directly from Furio’s soul.

“Incense!” He hacked up, coughing agreement. “Incense for the damned!”

“You speak in terms of necromancy!” The visitator snapped from his door. “It is precisely such talk that put us in this sty!”

“No, it were the superstitions of narrowminded bigots!” Ilmenview held against while Furio was still wheezing for air.

He had to forcefully clear his throat, so loudly that now even the man gaping at the wall turned to look at him.

“Regardless of who it was that put you here,” he croaked, heavy slime rippling up his windpipe, “I am the one who can take you out! We shall not abide by this! Albernia needs its wizards! I shall speak to the queen when she returns.”

Hope glimmered in all their eyes, all but for Corvinius Corinthis’, the man Furio needed most.

“And isn’t it this same queen whom we should aid Albernia against?” The spotless man asked pointedly. “Has she not committed wanton murder all over the continent? Has she not destroyed Winhall, wiped out Aiwall and eaten the true king’s own blood?”

The listening heads snapped back to Furio who found himself at a loss for words. This was dangerous talk from an impotent man, he judged, one who held on to his misguided principles because he had nothing else left to his devices.

‘Every ruler conquers with violence,’ was the best Furio could think of.

It sounded stale and certainly wouldn’t do. Instead, he suddenly remembered something General Lee had told him when first they met, the queer riddle of Rur and Gror, those strange gods the Maraskans believed in. Queer, foreign gods would throw Corvinius Corinthis into another tizzy, however, so he had to amend.

“Once upon a time,” Furio began, his voice dark and rasping, “Phex spoke to Ingerimm that he may turn the people’s iron into silver. Ingerimm declined, telling him that he shan’t do so, lest he be asked to turn copper into gold.”

Corvinius Corinthis scowled predictably: “Are you speaking in riddles?”

It was the exact same reaction Furio had had when Lee told him. The memory made him smile.

“It is Maraskan he speaks.” A man in the darkest corner of the room said, stepping forward a tad into the light.

He was unmistakably southern as Furio could see by his bronze skin and somewhat almond-shaped eyes. His head bore a white turban and a sapphire-blue caftan was his cloak.

The man smiled shyly: “Only, our dear colleague must have mistaken Rur and Gror for Phex and Ingerimm. He may be forgiven. The moral of this story is an intriguing one.”

He left it at that, a gap that was filled by Master Ephraim’s introduction.

“Master Retoban the Blue.” The old man said. “Fled to us from Gareth.”

“Retoban al’Djin ibn Belizeth sâl Hashan ay Baburin.” The stranger bowed elegantly as the name, if it could be called that, tumbled flawlessly off his tongue. “I am at your service, Furio the Red. Not as much a wizard as I am an alchemist, I am afraid. But consider this, my friend visitator. May a potion only be administered to a patient if it is capable of restoring him entirely? If not, shall I be disallowed from lessening his woes?”

“So, you mean to serve this demon who calls herself queen.” Corvinius Corinthis said through teeth clenched shut.

Furio took a long drag from his pipe that he had lit from his finger with an elemental manifestation. The sweet relief of the Stoerrebrandt cleared his lungs and mind, both of the pain and worry he carried in either.

“By no means.” He said through a cloud of smoke. “I mean to serve my people.”

-

The maddening absurdity playing out before Laura’s eyes left her helpless. They were finally at Ordhan Herlogan’s village of Andoain again, on the hill on which the palace stood.

It had stopped to snow, very abruptly.

Next to the village was a veritable city of tents that had housed tens of thousands of men in dire peril, first hit by a flash flood from the rains, then frozen in by sudden dawn of winter without any adequate equipment upon their backs. The size of the host put Honingen to shame and almost rivalled Havena, and the density with which the men were packed was downright staggering.  

The soldiers had been making-due with snow and ice around them as best they could when Laura and Janna came. They had then dropped everything to take to their heels as fast as the deep snow permitted, sitting ducks, defenceless against Laura’s trampling assault. If only it had come.

What temporary fortifications they had built, ditches, stakes and dykes, had all been washed away in the torrential rains.

However, Laura could not grasp this chance to annihilate them. Janna wouldn’t allow it, and in the state of mind in which she was, Laura thought it best not to test her on that front, much as she would have appreciated being rid of the Nordmarkener host in permanent fashion.

Instead, Janna negotiated with Duke Hagrobald Guntwin of the Big River, he standing in Ordhan Herlogan’s yard, and she standing in the remnants of Ordhan Herlogan’s gardens. Janna had not given any care to spare the hedges and flowerbeds from her footfalls. They weren’t obvious for what they were in snow, certainly, so she might have been forgiven had she not purposefully destroyed more of the beautiful gardens when Laura asked her to step around them.

It wasn't new, this infantile, vindictive viciousness, but definitely more petty than before. Janna hadn’t had it at all when they reunited up north of the Tommel, or at least that was the way Laura felt. Worse yet, Janna seemed to display it only to those who ought to have been close to her. With strangers, or even enemies such as the Nordmarkener Duke, she was the charm in person.

“I am not here to bandy words with wicked, evil monsters!” The Duke defiantly roared up at her face.

His own face, or what was visible besides his coarse black hair, was beet-red with rage.

“You don’t want to die either, though, I take it?” Janna countered with a shrug. “Because that is what will happen if we do not come to terms. You will find our proposal generous.”

Laura had no idea what Janna intended to offer to him, but it didn’t feel right, the way Albernia was bartered over when its queen was standing idly by. She couldn’t stop Janna, however. Her only hope was that Hagrobald would display himself as so unreasonable that there remained no other means but to squash him, but even that was doubtful at this point.

“Proposal!” The duke made the word a curse. “My sword up your overgrown arse!”

Janna gave him a superior, scolding look: “You could shove in the length of your arm as well and I wouldn’t even feel it.”

This made the duke so mad with impotent rage that he stomped the snow and beat his fists upon his armoured calves. It would’ve been frightening, no doubt, had he not looked like a tiny, angry toy soldier down there in this white toy castle’s yard.

“Horse manure, piss, arse!” He replied, screaming. “Whore! Giant fucking whore! Piss!”

“Cock-sucking, piss-drinking, horse-manure-smelling…uh, imp, I suppose?” Janna returned sarcastically.

She was looking rather like an overgrown mother, scolding a fit-throwing child. He only grew worse, however, and she made no attempt to dampen him.

Laura shook her head and sighed. She had still dared to hope but sensed that it would be fruitless. For anxiety, she had begun to play with Dari in her hand, travelling the tiny girl over her knuckles like a spinning coin. This was only possible because Dari was remarkably acrobatic and flexible, more than anybody Laura had ever seen. Perhaps she was one of those snake people, like in the circus.

The girl was also completely terrified of this, but right now Laura needed the distraction.

“He’s actually kinda fun, ain’t he.” Janna commented when she had just been called a dragon-fucking demon, as well as a nameless cunt.

She screwed up her face as one would to scare a baby and told the duke: “You…count of any place in Albernia you name, if you want it.”

Laura’s ears pricked up at the sudden change, but she didn’t understand the meaning of it at all.

“Shhh!” Janna made when she asked in English what this was supposed to be about.

“What in the bloody Netherhells do you speak of, you nameless…urgh…cunt!” Hagrobald’s rebuke came after a moment.

“You already used that one, my lord.” Janna smiled. “It’s against the rules. What I am proposing is precisely what I just said. Now, do you have horse manure in your ears, or do you understand me?”

There wasn’t a single voice of reason in this conversation. It had been a mistake. Maybe they should have taken Furio with them.

“Scheming bitch!” The duke fumed with vigour renewed, but Laura barrelled over him before he could continue. sheshe

She had finally understood.

“Over my dead fucking body!” She growled, tossing Dari up and snatching her out of mid-air. “This man is our enemy, Janna! We ought to crush him to paste, not give him whatever he wants!”

She was so angry and frustrated she could’ve squelched Dari to porridge in her fist, but that would mean killing her.

“You’ve always been a dumb, pretty girl.” Janna sneered in reply but did not offer any additional explanation.

“Fuck you.” Laura said dryly before turning to the duke in his own tongue. “And fuck you too, you stupid, little bug. If you think I will give you a piece of my kingdom then you can go bugger yourself with your sword for all I care.”

It was both frustrating and exhausting, and it hurt so much because she loved Janna. She considered jumping on the duke and flattening him under her body. Maybe that would drive Janna over the edge, though.

Janna was smiling a wicked smile, as though she enjoyed having created this terribly stupid situation. Laura did not see a single positive thing that could come from this, not unless they would finally start to murder everybody.

That would have been the thing. But no, Janna had to act stupid.

“Do you want Honingen?” Janna asked him. “We’ll give it to you if you want. You can have Winhall too if you like that better, although there isn’t much left of it. Or do you want Havena? Name a place and it is yours.”

“Are you mad?!” He scowled up at her through thick beard and eyebrows. “Why would you do this?”

He was frothing at the mouth, Laura noted. It was absolutely disgusting.

“To make a peace.” Janna replied lightly. “We have had rather enough of war. And we sure have enough on our plate to keep us occupied without you invading us every time you manage to raise an army. I pray you, be a sensible ruler of men and accept this proposal. It’s as generous as any you are like to get.”

That was certainly true, which was precisely what made Laura so absolutely furious about it. She wouldn’t consent, she decided, and then just say no to anything Janna said afterwards. That should create enough of an obstruction to derail whatever plan of hers was playing out here.

She had been gaming for a truce as well, earlier, frightened by the size of the Nordmarker army as she had been. But not at any price, rather at the cheap price of letting them walk away unscathed.

She didn’t want this truce now. She wanted war. War meant she could visit Nordmarken regularly and amuse herself at the expense of its inhabitants. That was a priceless asset to give up.

But she didn’t want to lose Janna.

“So,” Janna continued after a moment, “what shall it be, Duke?”

Tiny Hagrobald Guntwin of the Big River looked back at her, then to Laura, before his eyes panned over his assembled knights. They finally came to rest on Ordhan Herlogan who stood there as though he was one of them.

That was a bit strange. Perhaps Hagrobald realized in that moment that Laura was perfectly capable of letting people live if she wanted to. Herlogan said something that was lost to her ears in the uncomfortable shifting of several hundred suits of plate and mail.

Whatever Duke Hagrobald would say now, Laura would rage about it, she already knew. She would not give up any of her counties, and she would certainly not give up her capital of Havena.

The Duke’s mouth opened for a bark: “Big River!”

There were any number of things Laura had planned on saying to him, but all that came out was: “What?”

It didn’t make any sense.

Even Janna looked a tad sceptical now: “I don’t remember there being such a county. What are you speaking of?”

Laura drew the map from her back pocket.

“There is no such county.” She said angrily before the duke could reply. “There are only Honingen, Winhall, Bredenhag and Havena.”

She tossed the big piece of wax cloth into the yard where it landed on a number of terrified knights who ran as though she had dumped a boulder on them.

Keeping it in her pocket had already worn the sail the map was painted on, she discovered to her increasing annoyance. Three bolder knights rushed to roll it out entirely.

“Yes, there is!” Hagrobald roared with his voice that was staggering for a creature so tiny.

He marched onto the map, ending in the surrounding lands of Havena where he drew his sword and rammed it through the cloth and into the ground.

“Those are the City Marklands.” Laura knew, mostly unimpressed and slightly angry. “So, it is Havena you want, huh, you greedy prick?!”

“No, it is not!”

She was prepared to just slap him at this point, which would absolutely annihilate him and all the dumb plans for peace Janna was forcing. The little, hairy moron even had the disgrace to look wistful, which was absurd as though he now too hoped to make this truce real.

As well he might, though, Laura reconsidered. Even he had to realize at some point that he stood no chance against her. Without Praiodan of Whiterock’s blinding flash, all he was to her was a nuisance, a bug that she would squash for nothing more than convenience.

He walked out the borders of the area he wanted, between the city of Havena and the borders of Bredenhag. It wasn’t clear from the map which showed only one large lake in the north of that area, but Laura could have sworn that this was already Lakeland, coming slightly before the river delta and being effectively as much water as solid ground. She didn’t know if this was economically or politically significant, though, only remembering that it was quite pretty.

It still didn’t make any sense either, not unless he meant to separate Havena from the rest of the kingdom again.

“Remember,” Janna explained, “I offer you to become count of the land you name. The kingdom remains Queen Laura’s and your county will not become part of your Duchy to any degree.”

The acknowledgement was as queer to Laura’s ears as the rest of the proposal. She had missed the bit where Janna had said Hagrobald would be count, or at the least had not thought about the implications. She knew too little about feudalism to know how this would work – or whether it would work at all.

“I heard you!” The duke complained loudly. “Or do you take me for deaf?! I want the Big River! I carry it in my name! It was my family’s own fief for ages, before Gareth split Albernia and Windhag from the Nordmarken! Every time I go to the council I complain, but they will not give any of it back to me. Too big they say, hah! Well, if they will not give it, I must take it, seems to me!”

He didn’t talk like a dullard, but Laura recognized right then and there why it was that people called him dim. She had assumed his house was named for that big mighty river in the south, not a nameless piece of land and water between here and there with no major cities nor particular note of any kind.

And she had no doubt that most people believed that as well. It also became apparent to her that Ordhan Herlogan had suggested to him precisely this request, perhaps the only request that Laura could live with. Taking land from the City Mark was no big deal. There was no count to object, only a measly, little city magistrate and maybe a council, a steward or stewards, guilds of craftsmen and such. She could get rid of and replace any of these with relative ease, or just overrule them...or eat the families of any objector to bully them into submission.

Moreover, Janna’s proposal connected him to Laura and Albernia. He wouldn’t be like the other counts or countesses, because he was also the Duke of Nordmarken, but he would have to swear an oath all the same and now stood to lose something in Albernia’s demise, something he seemed sentimentally attached to.  

That was quite clever of Janna, cleverer than Laura would have believed. Then again, though, this outcome was nothing but sheer, unadulterated luck.

“Done.” Laura said when all her realizations were complete.

It would still have been better to crush this army for good, but Janna’s idea suddenly seemed like the next best thing. They really did have enough on their plate as well, and winter had finally arrived.

“Done!” Duke Hagrobald roared, sounding as pleased as though he had just won a major victory. “Well then, I can finally move on! My overlords of Gareth have commanded me to move south! Come on, men! We have an army to catch!”

“Not so fast.” Janna smiled down at him.

She wouldn’t let him go without an oath, which he reluctantly agreed to. Once that was done, they all just walked away, each off to their own.

Medieval politics were weird.

“Told you.” Janna chirped obnoxiously when they were alone with Dari, walking their way back. “Did I or did I not just totally saved thousands of lives?”

Laura was sour, mostly for the fact that Janna had won the game.

“That back there was no victory.” She proposed. “It would’ve been better to crush them while we had the chance. Nothing is stopping them from eventually turning back around and attacking us anyway, and down south they will probably fight against Horas.”

Janna shrugged: “Fuck Horas. They made us annihilate Thorwal, they’re evil people, every last one of them.”

“Even Furio?”

“No, not Furio obviously.”

Laura shook her head in bewilderment over how much Janna had changed. She would have to make announcements, arrangements also. More work, but at least it was the kind that she could delegate. A word to Franka Salva Galahan should be enough, the same old lady that had told her to attack the very enemy she had raised to rank of count. Laura hadn’t realized this while bartering, which told her she wasn’t a very good queen at all, just now.

“I mean, think about it.” Janna went on about the Horasians who had already been off of Laura’s mind. “It’s so easy to make peace, and they opted for all out war. The state they are in and the fact that Gareth is going to war with them is entirely their fault…well, and ours, partially, but only because we got duped. The more I think of it the more I just hate them.”

Making peace had been easy in this instance, Laura reflected. Promised some land and title, Duke Hagrobald all of a sudden did not seem to think of them as huge, giant whore demons, or whatever, but a reasonable party to an agreement, a contract, a treaty even, and a multilateral one at that.

On the other hand was what Janna said a tad too flippant and hypocritical for Laura to let it slide.

“Easy, eh?” She scoffed. “Come on, you couldn’t have known he would settle for that particular area. It’s literally the only thing I would’ve given him!”

“Lucky, I guess.” Janna smirked in return. “They didn’t even mention that fundamentalist either, even though you basically pushed that little liability there right in their face. I was hoping they would recognize her and make you give her up. Meh. Guess I’ll have to smush her myself.”

“Hell no.” Laura closed her fist around Dari again, shoving her down into her jeans pocket soon after.

The girl still had an incomplete story, she felt. And she was more or less familiar, not to mention useful. Pulling off this assassination had been a big thing indeed, one she should probably get a reward for.

Why Janna wanted to kill her so bad remained a mystery Laura did not want to get into again at the moment. What the dealings with Nordmarken had revealed, however, was that Janna was not so short-sightedly disruptive as first it had seemed.

She was also not as healthy. It wasn’t long after they departed that her steps grew shorter, her teeth were clenched and she was wheezing with pain again. She had had a brief high, succeeding in the execution of her peaceful plot. But reality caught up eventually, as always.

Laura feared that such a moment would come for her too. Something told her Franka Salva Galahan would be none too happy about this new arrangement, even though it did not really affect her in a direct fashion. Somehow, Laura also considered the fact that Bragon Fenwasian, the former Count of Winhall, would be none too pleased. This was a strange thought because Fenwasian was Laura’s enemy, which would in turn mean that by appeasing Hagrobald instead of squishing him she had done the right thing.

She shared a common enemy with the Fenwasians as well, though, a common enemy all could ally against.

The Red Curse.

With Nordmarken out of the way she would finally be able to tackle it, at least after holding court on the morrow. The prospect of this thing was still looming over her head like a shadow. Then there was also the revolt at Abilacht to consider, not to mention so many other things.

First, though, she needed to blow some steam. This whole affair surrounding the unlikely truce had been greatly frustrating and fraying her nerves to no end. When they were back at Honingen after a long, slow walk, Laura deposited the pain-stricken Janna at their sleeping place, by now a barren spot of earth where even grass and reeds had been crushed out of existence, before going back to the city to order more mulled wine and release the poor little Dari.

“Find me a whore and bring her to me secretly.” She breathed into her fist enclosing the little girl. “No, better, two whores. I don’t care how you do it and I don’t have to tell you that you need not worry about them ever telling anyone.”

Devising this plot on the fly was enough to get her loins fired up. She could hardly wait for her toys to be delivered so she could have something helpless struggle between her legs again.

When it came to dumping Dari on the ground, she had a second thought, however: ‘What if she runs away?’

Janna had almost killed Dari. The mission had almost killed Dari. The inquisition had almost killed Dari as well. If she possessed any wits at all, she’d certainly take to her heels and run. That at least was what Laura judged likely.

“And don’t you even think about running away from here.” She whispered as softly as ever she could. “I will find you, if you do. I will uproot empires if I have to. And I’ll make you wish you never were born. The worst the inquisition did to you is going to seem like a walk in the gardens. Ask Master Furio about the Mad Lioness, if you dare. Don’t take too long either or I will use you instead, for what I am going to do.”

-

“With Her Grace’s permission, we will rebuild the college.” Ephraim O. Ilmenview told Furio as they walked.

He sensed that there was more, however, and sure enough after a few more steps it finally came.

“But we will not partake.”

‘We will not partake in matters of war and politics,’ was what he meant.

The Grey Guild was ever like that. It was the foundation it was built upon. Technically, the Honinger College, in truth little more than a grey stone house by the city walls, had been guild-less, but incorporation had been going on.

“Not even should Her Grace ask it of you?” Furio inquired softly.

“Not in conjunction.” Ilmenview replied firmly. “Individually, now, that is another matter.”

He frowned at what he sensed the meaning of those words was. It was probably better to speak the truth.

“I need Master Corvinius to create the artefacts for me.” He emphasised. “I feel this precaution will be very important in the near future. Will you help me?”

“No.” Ilmenview simply shook his head.

He didn’t even break his stride even though Furio did, by virtue of being entirely dumbfounded of the lacking cooperation.

“I cannot say that I am very happy with this decision.” He finally mustered while hastening after the tall, slender man.

He felt that at some point they would have been of a height, but Furio wasn’t so tall anymore as once he had been, much as though he was withering away. He still carried his cane and used it too, like a very old man.

“Your happiness is not among my primary concerns, dear colleague.” Ilmenview haltered impatiently to let him catch up. “This is not your doing, your concern for us notwithstanding. Most importantly, in dealing with Corvinius it would enhance your prospects if I were as far removed as possible. I hope you understand.”

Furio did, to some extent. He had heard and seen them fight. They were adversaries more so than colleagues. No doubt it vexed Corinthis that Ilmenview had been able to walk free at trial.

Janna and Laura had surrounded the city as easily and quickly as a normal person might stroll around a pond. This had resulted in the two wizards first hastening in one, and then in the opposite direction. He should get a horse to keep him from exertion, Furio thought, or else a litter or palanquin.

Like an old man.

Janna was in no good shape either, if Furio was any judge. She had one arm around Laura and appeared to be in great pain.

The road to Galahan Palace had been freed from snow and was framed with tall, old trees. It was there that Ephraim O. Ilmenview became vexed with Furio’s slower pace and abandoned him to walk alone. Much as Furio was alarmed by this, he couldn’t change it. Ilmenview cared naught for conventions, which was precisely what might get him killed.

That would be a sad thing. The institutions of wizards had suffered greatly in the most recent times, so every one of them had become even more so a precious thing than before.

That was already the entire extend to which Furio was interested in Ilmenview, however. He truly needed Corinthis, for crafting the magical artefacts that were to bar the giantesses’ minds from magical influence. This would mean Furio could no longer use his Bannbaladin spell to soften their tempers, but the way he saw it, the spell had outlived its use in that regard.

‘I could have used it on Ilmenview.’ He realized, halting.

Such a thing was immoral, to be sure, but here he would have done it with good intention. He could also use it on Corvinius Corinthis to get his artefacts. The option had never even occurred to him before.

‘I am inadequate.’ He thought with a glance atop, wondering if the gods were watching, and if they were, what they made of his actions.  

His judgement dream had been queer, raising more questions than giving answers. Perhaps mortal men were too feeble to comprehend the will of gods, or else, and this seemed true, the gods were not of one mind either.

Little wonder the world was in such a chaotic state.  

The way seemed endless alone and it took him so long that Laura departed from Janna again, went to the city and then came back a second time, all while he was walking.

That wasn’t a bad attribute for a queen, surely, being able to travel so quickly that she could effectively be in many places at once. It surely collided, however, with the custom of feasting royalty at every opportunity should they be on the road. Laura did not even require roads to begin with, unless she did not know where to go.

“Well, basically there are very tiny, tiny things, so tiny you can’t even see them, and I think they are still trying to eat me from the inside.” Janna’s voice reached Furio’s ear. “What? No, not demons, forget that!”

He did not have any idea what this was about, but he had no good feeling about it either.

“I am not so sure about that, with the Praios church and all.” Laura’s voice echoed through the trees a little later.

It seemed Ilmenview had not even considered waiting for Furio, so all he had were the giant voices that carried very, very far. That was the queerest thing when talking to them, he reflected. Initially, one had the impetus of calling to them as one would call up a high cliff, a tower or a tree. At the same time, though, they could also understand words spoken normally, suggesting that their hearing was akin to that of a fox or something similar. They never complained of loudness, though, even when men screamed and roared at them with all their might, or when drums and the horrid sounds of war were booming.

Furio couldn’t explain it.

“What?!” Janna’s voice was laden with objection. “You can’t be serious! Wizards are…are you too stupid to see that, do I honestly have to spell it out for you? This is obviously the right choice!”

Laura seemed unconvinced: “But the people…I told you, didn’t I?”

“No, no, no.” Janna was resolute in her conviction. “You can absolutely reopen your college, Master…what is your name? Oh, well met, Master Ephraim, what a nice name indeed, so well-sounding. What’s the O for? Oh.”

Laura scoffed and replied snidely in the foreign tongue that the giantesses sometimes spoke. It seemed as though an argument was ensuing.

When Furio could see Galahan Palace, he could see the giantesses as well, finally. By then, they turned to the common tongue again, and seemingly to a different subject.

“How do you suppose to heal me, exactly, Master Ephraim?” Janna was inquiring.

“If there was a spell like that, Furio would’ve done it a while ago, right?” Laura added.

When Furio saw Janna shrug, that quite unnerved him. He came just close enough to hear Ilmenview upon the end of the speech he was giving, which was unfortunate because his last two words were: “Swallow me.”

Janna’s initial reaction was drastic: “Are you mad? No! You know you will die down in my stomach, don’t you?”

On this issue too, Laura was of the opposite conviction.

“This is brilliant!” She exclaimed. “What a brave sacrifice! If you do this, I will certainly allow your college to be reopened, Master Ephraim!”

Furio was uncertain whether he was witnessing sheer, unbridled madness or just a very bad mummers’ farce.

“Stop this!” He huffed and puffed and hobbled on his cane but before he could continue, Ilmenview interrupted him.

“This concerns you not, my dear colleague!” He warned, turning.

Healing disease with magic was out of the question. Injury, aye. But not disease. Of healing spells, Furio knew only two. Balsam Salabunde was the one most commonly used, applied by putting a hand on the wound while casting the spell. The other was an inverse variant of the Fulminictus, which was in actuality a combat spell that could cause great pain, exhaustion and even kill in some rare instances. One had to cast a complicated Reversalis Revidum spell at the same time, to make the Fulminictus do the opposite of what it was originally intended to do.

Reversalis spells were extremely difficult, however, and could oft give birth to unpredictable as well as undesirable effects. Furio had only attempted this a handful of times himself, and never without the utmost precaution.

Ilmenview faced him, brazen determination on his face. Surely he could not mean to fight. The grey wizard was not trained in combat spells, and Furio was a very experienced magicus combativus, even if he no longer felt that way. But the old man produced his staff from his fraying robes, little more than a wand of ash wood by the looks of it.

Furio no longer had his own staff after having lost it somewhere up north, but he did not need it to defend himself.

Above their heads, Laura berated Janna in their foreign tongue. Their attention was elsewhere.

“You are mad!” Furio declared, now only ten steps away from his colleague. “You cannot mean to…”

His breath stopped abruptly when Epharim O. Ilmenview transformed before his very eyes. It was an influence spell by the name of Horriphobus, he judged, and even though he knew what was happening to him was he powerless to stop it.

Like a creature from his worst nightmares, Ilmenview appeared to him now. That was what the Horriphobus did. A demon, Furio could have dealt with. Some grotesque chimera of all the monsters of the world as well.

But not Fabrizio, his dear friend who had died in the quagmire of Demon Bog only to re-emerge from the swamp to try and kill him.

His friend. They had discovered the Bannbaladin spell together, back when their lives weren’t so full of woes. Fabrizio.

Tears blurred Furio’s vision. His heart was thumping in his chest.

“No!” He screamed and cried. “No! Fabrizio! I burned you! On the Demon Bog, I burned you! No!”

He went through all the gestures of conjuring an Ignisphereo fireball spell, but it didn’t happen. He must have botched up the formula somehow.

“What’s going on?” He heard Janna ask from above.

He turned his back to them all, refusing to look. But instead of seeing Master Ilmenview as his old friend risen from the dead, he now saw him before his inner eye, in memory, trying to strangle him amidst fog and mud and madness.

“What did you do to him?!”

“Yes, what did you do?! If she’s not going to eat you now, I am!”

It was no good. Furio had to face his demons or Ilmenview would throw his life away for seemingly no reason.

“He bewitched me!” He called up to the giant, scowling faces above. “Do him no harm on my account, he means only to do good, the fool!”

Janna looked down on him with concern: “Can he really heal me if I swallow him?”

“No.” Furio shook his head.

“Yes!” The ruined corpse of Fabrizio insisted stubbornly. “You said yourself that your flesh was eaten by those little demons! Swallow me whole and I will make it right! I wish only my school be reopened!”

Janna would never eat this decaying corpse, Furio thought before remembering that it was only him Ilmenview had cursed with the Horriphobus. This meant that all Janna was seeing was an old, barefooted man, tiny enough to go down her throat with one barely significant gulp, as so many others had before him. Only the lacking standards of grooming could deter her now, but if she even noticed Ilmenview could use another illusion spell to make himself look appetizing, if he hadn’t already.

“Fool!” Furio spat. “Even if you succeeded you would die in the attempt!”

It just didn’t make any sense.

Abruptly, the form of Fabrizio turned back into Ephraim O. Ilmenview’s, the old, wispy wizard with the sparse hair. He did not look all too alive either, Furio had to note.

“If it can reopen my college then this is fine by me!” He argued. “It is my life’s work and I want it back, even if I needs die to make it so!”

“I don’t think you would have to die at all, though.” Janna put in from above. “I can send you down and retch you back up afterwards. I’m not saying it isn’t dangerous or anything, but there’s a considerable chance at least, I’d say.”

The apple in her throat moved, barely visible, even though gigantic. She had a broad jaw that Furio knew was able to turn scores of people into mush before she swallowed. But she had a strong throat too, as women with strong jaws often had.

There were too kinds of desirable women, Furio had once philosophised over too much wine with Fabrizio. There was the sweet kind, tall or small but slender and pretty, a feast for the senses if little more. And there was the strong kind, the kind with broad hips for better chance of surviving childbirth, larger teats the better to give suck, and an overall superior bodily strength to fend off the woes that came with living life as a female.

“That…that would be welcome, if such a thing were possible.” Ilmenview allowed, looking up at the giantess he wanted to swallow him.

Had she been merely a girl, Janna was certainly the latter kind, and she was large enough to ingest and then digest Ephraim O. Ilmenview, along with his robes and foolish notions both.

“Retching him up might hurt you, though.” Laura put in after a moment. “You said it hurt the most.”

“True.” Janna chewed her lip which put parts of her boulder-sized teeth on display. “But not if he succeeds, right?”

Furio was losing patience: “He is not going to succeed!”

It was possible, he had to admit. But unlikely. Why they were having this discussion was entirely beyond him too. Janna’s firm ‘no’ should have sufficed in the first place, but now even she seemed to contemplate this disastrous plan.

Her giant lips were pressed together in thought, her brow furrowed. Then, the gigantic behemoth made a horrible decision.

“Let’s try it out.”

The next thing Furio saw was Ephraim O. Ilmenview, struggling between Janna’s thumb and forefinger. She did not even address him another time but just pushed him past her lips, tilted her head back and swallowed.

The fool had gotten his wish fulfilled.

“Are you feeling better?” Laura asked excitedly after a moment.

Janna caressed her stomach before responding in the foreign tongue, sounding very unsure at that.

“I said, I think I can feel him try, but it still hurts.” She told Furio when she saw him wondering.

Of course it did, Furio thought. The entire notion was idiocy. He could only imagine what it would have to be like, being in Janna’s belly.

The time went on and on and Janna still shook her head when Laura asked again.

“Get him out then!” Furio urged, although his voice came out more as a bark than he had intended it to.

“Uh,” Janna pressed her lips together and tilted her head, “no.”

Laura’s mouth twisted into a venomous smile.

“Ah, ha, ha!” She laughed shamelessly. “Aw, honestly, it would’ve been great if he succeeded, but this is the next best thing!”

“Don’t be so heartless.” Janna scolded her, but even she could not hide a mildly smile. “At least allow his wizard school to be reopened so he didn’t get digested for nothing.”

Digested, Furio thought bitterly, for nothing indeed. Without Janna’s intervention, her belly would do to Ilmenview what it had done to the hundreds if not thousands of others who had gone that way before.

“Retch him up!” He urged again, helpless.

Janna shook her head: “I’m sorry, but it hurts too much. He had a fair chance. I already can’t feel him anymore and the pain is still there, unfortunately.”

And that was the end of Ephraim O. Ilmenview, who introduced himself precisely as such, and had founded the mages college of Honingen.

Furio longed for a pipe.

-

The bawd of the Seven Tulamidian Nights was a tall, beautiful woman with bronze skin, a feline face and two mismatched eyes. One was a brown so dark that it was almost onyx, whereas the other was emerald green. She wore a fur vest under a fur-lined cloak, wide silk britches and pointy red leather boots.

“Understand Her Grace is willing to pay handsomely for this.” Dari explained in an attempt to overcome the doubt that was written on the face before her.

For once, the room in the whorehouse was free of smoke from the water pipes. Having no windows, it was simply too cold to have any sort of pleasure there at this time.

The bawd frowned: “I do not make a habit of forcing my girls to accept dangerous customers. No exceptions.”

“Not even for Her Grace, the queen?”

Dari sensed that she was being lied to, probably because it was no secret as to what would happen to the girls.

The bawd sighed: “Can’t you find another establishment and get what Her Grace wants from there?”

Of course, Dari could. The trouble was that she sensed Laura would get vindictive if presented with two worn-out, bow-legged sailor rugs. And then it would be Dari she’d use. Being on Laura’s good side was important, now more than ever. Becoming a person of interest to her had been a mistake. The door of simply running away was closed now. Dari should have gone through it while she still had the chance.

“Would you have refused Finnian ui Bennain as well?” She asked pointedly, raising a brow to ensure the underlying threat did not go unnoticed.

The bawd’s eyes narrowed: “King Finnian did never require my services. He has his wife, the beautiful Talena of Draustone to warm his bed at night.”

Talena of Draustone was Count Arlan Stepahan’s daughter. The grim, teeth-gnashing Father of the former Albernian queen was a captive of the Horasians.

“Lot’s of your customers have wives.” Dari retorted. “And you did not answer my question.”

She drew her knife and placed it on the table between them.

“Oh, please.” The bawd scowled and drew her own blade, a thick, ornate dagger that had a highly impractical curvature at the end, essentially rendering it useless for purposes of stabbing.

Dari had known of the blade all along, even though the small sheath through the silk cloth belt looked more like a pretty accessory than anything else.

“Her Grace will have her whores.” Dari said. “The only question is whether or not you are one of them.”

The woman pressed her lips together and swallowed. Dari had won.

The workers of the Seven Tulamidian Nights were one story above, huddled by a hearth in another luxurious room where customers now picked those they wanted to bed. The act was no longer performed in hearing of everyone else but taken to adjacent sleeping chambers.

“That one and that one.” Dari pointed at a black-haired girl with almond shaped eyes and a chestnut-haired one that looked more local than Tulamidian.

They were both small, slender and pretty. Dari judged that was the kind that Laura preferred. The local girl looked at Dari wide-eyed, whereas the other bit her lip and threw back a mischievous glance. They thought Dari was a customer.

“These are not slaves.” The bawd declared in an attempt to save her last bit of dignity. “They have the power to refuse, I cannot force them.”

“You needn’t force me.” The Tulamidian girl husked, looking Dari up and down. “You look cold. Come to a chamber with me and let me warm you.”

Dari did indeed look cold, she thought. She still wore some of  Krool’s ragged hides.

“You are not for me.” She replied sternly. “Her Grace, the queen, wants. The reward is handsome.”

The Tulamidian girl swallowed hard and the other whore’s eyes grew even wider. There was whispering in the room. Dari cursed them all in her mind. It would have been good to get a few guardsmen and simply take the girls at spearpoint, only that would’ve ruined the secrecy.

Doing it differently on her part, speaking for a nameless, secretive rich man, a cleric or something of that nature, that would have been a terrific notion if only it hadn’t been made impossible by her apparel. Confidants of moneyed persons were most commonly not bundled up in skins.

Why Krool had been out there on the road, expecting her, was an unsolved mystery. The same was true for the strange man with the black robes in her dream, the one who had woken her up and prevented her mission from becoming even more tattered and dangerous than it had been to begin with.

What few words he had said had been queer as well, but Dari was reluctant to tell Laura for fear of the giantess attempting to squeeze more words out of her, the literal way. Laura had saved Dari when Janna threw her away like a used rag, but that didn’t mean Dari was beyond being killed if Laura saw any gain in it, on any matter she deemed more important.

“B…b…ba-but,” the local girl stammered, “but she’s huge! Her Grace, she’s a giantess, how would we…how…”

“Hush.” The bawd told her calmly with clear approval in her eyes. “No one is forcing you to do this.”

“Pleasing a giantess isn’t that hard.” Dari threw back at the bawd, trying to tell the woman with her eyes that it would be she to end in Laura’s cunt if none of the girls would consent to it. “Their parts are similar made to ours. Hers are simply bigger. You need only to use your hands and mouth. That is all.”

“Then I can do it!” A fat, bold man with golden rings on his arms said in a boyish voice from where he leaned against a wall. “How handsome is that reward, exactly?”

Greed was gleaming in his eyes, but Laura had specifically asked for female whores, not eunuchs, if this was one. Judging by his smooth, pink cheeks and sagging fat breasts he probably was.

“This offer is extended only to girls.” Dari replied. “And the reward is more handsome than any other you are ever like to get in a lifetime.”

The assembled whores exchanged looks while the bawd bit her lip to keep herself from spilling forth gruesome truths. For any girl consenting to be Laura’s plaything, there would be neither a reward nor a tomorrow. It was certainly an evil proposition, Dari thought, but even the gods, if they were watching her, would have to concede that this was an impossible choice for her too.

“I’m up for it.” A whore stood.

She was Tulamid, or Novadi, and had the body of a horse more than that of a woman. Some men liked women with some strength to them, Dari knew, and this one looked almost like a Thorwaller. She had wide hips, thick, long legs, a face that was a bit on the long side as well. Her breasts were comparatively small but she had that certain stern kind of beauty that one might ascribe to Janna as well.

Dari nodded.

“Me too.” The local girl with chestnut hair whom Dari had picked first stood as well.

That was surprising.

“Brea?” The bawd asked. “Are you certain of this?”

The girl shrugged: “She’s the queen. My mother always sais, we must do what the queen wants, or the king. Her size frightens me but at least I’m not doing it alone.”

She threw a shy smile back at the other standing whore. That was sweet, Dari observed, which was good because Laura liked them sweet and innocent before she destroyed them.

“Get your cloaks then, you are coming with me.”

“I am going!” Now the Tulamid whore whom Dari had chosen at first glance started to rise in protest against the larger woman who had volunteered. “I was picked, you weren’t. Sit down!”

“You had your chance and you wouldn’t take it!” The other threw back heatedly. “This is mine now!”

“Shut your porridge hole, you stupid Novadi camel!” The first one retorted. “I’m prettier than you and I get three times your men, our queen should only have the best!”

Rage was firmly written on the bigger girl’s face. A fight was ensuing over who would get to be murdered by Laura, all because Dari had lied. The bigger girl flew at the smaller one but a eunuch was already there to restrain her.

Dari thought for a moment: “You can come all three. Her Grace is large, as you know, so there will be ample places for you to make yourselves useful.”

Laura had asked for two. Except first she had only asked for one. She was as greedy as any of them, and surely she would appreciate three even more. If not, she could just dispatch one with a flick of her wrist, and if that required too much effort then Dari would cut the throat of the surplus girl at a moment’s notice.

“Dress inconspicuously. And to the rest of you, no one will ever hear about this or Her Grace will do to you and your families what she did to Winhall.”

Word of this could still get out, Dari judged. Whores talked, always. If it would get back to her, then that would be bad. Perhaps she should come up with a plan to get rid of everyone in the Seven Tulamidian Nights altogether. Poison might do it. She wanted to look into substances of that nature anyway. Else, mayhaps Laura could be convinced that Honingen needed to have fewer whores. The provost of the Praios temple would certainly appreciate it.

If Dari was any judge, however, the threat seemed to suffice for now.

“Especially you.” She whispered to the tall, Tulamidian bawd in passing. “Any word of this gets out, you better watch the sky. Might be some big, giant foot is going to fall from it and snuff out your small, miserable life.”

There was a queer but undeniable pleasure in threatening the woman like that. Perhaps that was what Laura felt when she ended people. Dead was dead, though, no matter if by Laura’s feet or Dari’s blades, but the effortlessness certainly lent the former more terror.

The girls’ names were Brea, Hani and Ayasha, one local, one Tulamid and one Novadi girl. Laura would get an exotic variation today, it would seem. Dari called them different names in her head: Doe, Viper and Horse. The Viper was the most venomous, the most arrogant and the most beautiful. The Doe looked endearing not so much by virtue of beauty but rather young age and innocence. The Horse was the big girl, towering over Dari by more than a head, which would make her taller than even some men.

Once they were dressed, Dari ushered the posse through the southern gate of Honingen, trying not to be seen. The girls followed her lead on eager steps, no doubt dreaming of the reward that they would never receive.

Laura and Janna were at Galahan Palace, which was their usual sleeping and resting place at Honingen.

The entire time, the girls were speculating over the amount of coin, whether it would be paid in silver or gold, and how much they might expect. They had shut up about it in the city, but once they were on the almost empty road between the southern gate and Galahan Palace there was no gagging them.

When Dari spied the wizard Furio Montane coming their way, she took the girls off the road and made them hide behind the trees, a thing they seemed to find incredibly exciting. They were giddy at this point, and even started talking about how precisely they meant to get this job done and over with.

The wizard, meanwhile, had no eyes for them. Something was troubling him as he went muttering and cursing, smoking and leaning on his cane.

Then, near Galahan Palace, Dari hid the girls behind a hedge, told them to be quiet and wait. She knew that Laura wanted to conceal this thing from Janna, but it looked as though Janna was going to sleep again.

The snowfall had stopped a while ago and so being overlooked by the giantess was no longer as much of an issue. Even still, Dari was cautious. On the road, Janna had almost stepped on her and would have killed her had Dari not jumped away in the last instant. The donkey had not been so fortunate, and the sound of its body giving in to Janna’s oblivious sole had roused plenty of unpleasant memories.

Laura huddled like a small mountain under that huge grey blanket of hers. Dari picked up a rock and threw it into her field of vision.

The giant head turned, recognized her and smiled. Dari waved the enormous, man-eating monster close.

“I found what you wanted.” She whispered anxiously. “Three of them.”

“Three, huh?” Laura smiled and whispered back. “Well done. Where are they?”

Dari had only to point, upon which she was taken off the ground again by fingers as thick as tree trunks. She had hoped she might be spared this time around.

“Oh.” Laura made when she discovered her prey. “Pretty.”

The girls tried their best to hide their terror and pose seductively, which went best for the Viper, looked a little awkward on the Horse, and all but failed for the little, innocent Doe.

“We’re here to please you, Your Grace!” The Horse said. “We will do whatever you want!”

“Of course you will.” Laura chuckled softly. “But not here.”

While Laura removed the hedge that was in the way of her hand, the Viper started spewing her venom.

“Your Grace,” she said, her resolve visibly crumbling, “we were promised a handsome reward for this, but no one ever said how handsome it was to be. Uh, we…we’re wondering…”

“A reward?” Laura replied, amused. “Isn’t being with me reward enough for you? You shouldn’t get greedy with me now. Our kingdom needs coin for war. Sad to say we do not need whores all that much at this time.”

Dari had never seen a brown-skinned Tulamidian go pale before, but it happened.

“You…you won’t hurt us, Your Grace, you wouldn’t do that, would you?” The Doe said before turning and making a run for it when Laura’s fingers came for her first.

“Hurt you?” Laura grinned, snatching up the other girls before they could try and flee. “I can do with you whatever I want. If I want to kill you then that is what’s going to happen. You can prevent that, though, by pleasing me to the best of your ability. This one is a little ugly, isn’t she?”

She was referring to the Horse, much as though she was merely a piece of meat, and not one to be savoured. The Horse in turn screeched in horror until Laura pinched her between the thumb and forefinger of the hand in which Dari was now travelling, opposite the other girls she had led to their undoing.

“Next time, maybe, you could get me a couple of thieves or something.” Laura told her while walking seemingly without aim in a general northern direction.

Dari wondered if she would make for Aran, a larger village full of woodsmen up by the river Tommel. There were preciously few people living there at this time, however, according to what she had heard. The same was true for Storkrock, Glennisground, Greenedge, and all the other villages immediately north of the city. Even further north, in the county of Winhall, hardly anybody remained.

First, the news of Winhall’s fall had displaced them. An old Thistle Knight by the name of Rodowan Ahawar was to blame for that, driving a track of people south to gather a great army before facing Laura. It never came to that. Instead, a common archer naming himself Florian Vulture had usurped the army, raised a wooden pole with a drawstring shoe attached to it for a standard, and took the city of Abilacht, south of Honingen, before declaring allegiance to King Finnian, or something like that.

Abilacht wasn’t very far away from Honingen. Not for Laura at any rate. But the giant, man-devouring girl had been bogged down for fear of the Nordmarkener attack, an attack that now likely would never come. Dari had not been able to attend the negotiations as closely as she might have because Laura had tossed her up and played with her as though she were some toy. But she knew the outcome.

“Could you do that,” Laura looked at her, “get me some thieves?”

Dari had to swallow before she could answer: “From the dungeons?”

“No, not from the dungeons, silly.” Laura laughed. “When I want to smush the ones who already got caught all I have to do is ask for them. That’s a good idea, though. But no, I mean free-roaming thieves and do-no-goods and whatnot. You know, scum. Can you do that? I want to combine work and pleasure, if you follow my thinking.”

“I suppose.” Dari replied after a moment. “First I would have to find them.”

“You do that once we’re back.” Laura settled down in between two hills in the landscape, somewhere between Greenedge and Glennisground.

Dari found herself lowered to the ground and placed on a boulder. The snow was already melting off it, she saw, meaning that it was getting warmer again. There had been flooding before everything turned to ice, which was a blessing for some and a catastrophe for others. Then the snows had buried everything.

If it melted, it stood to reason that there would be flooding again. This was a terrible winter already, and autumn had just said farewell.

At this point, the whores were begging for their lives, all screaming against each other so that not one word they uttered could be understood. Laura turned her attention to them.

“What’s wrong?” She asked in a mocking voice. “Are you scared of the big mean queen? I’ll tell you what, there is a reward. Your life. Whoever pleases me best gets to keep it.”

The Doe looked up with her sweet, innocent eyes: “And the other two?”

Laura seemed irritated: “They are not going to keep it. If I don’t kill you while I reach my peak, I will gobble you up afterwards, or something.”

She padded her belly for emphasis. Only the gods knew how many people had found their end in there. Next, she did that thing to her blanket by which it seemed to magically transform into a sleeping bag, placing one corner over the other and drawing a metal sledge the size of a large handcart across the edges. The underlying mechanism emitted sounds not entirely dissimilar to a port cullis, but Dari had no idea how it worked. There appeared to be rows on metal teeth which could only be unclenched by the sledge.

“You should undress now.” Laura told her playthings with a smile.

The Viper had tears streaming down her face and raised a shaking finger accusingly: “N-no! You can’t do this to me! You can’t!”

Laura slipped into the sleeping bag. What was a mundane act for her was a thing entirely on its own to the world around her, because that sleeping bag had almost larger dimensions than an Imman field.

“And I’ve found the one to begin with!” The giantess poured. “But if you are not out of your clothes this instant you will be barred from the competition, which means I will crush you.”

Whores were professionals when it came to disrobing quickly, and the Tulamidian garb was cut wide and luxurious perhaps exactly for that purpose. Only the Viper was too vain and arrogant. While the Doe and the Horse were naked within a heartbeat, the last of the three women pulled a pocket knife hidden in her silk belt and made to ram it into her own belly.

Dari couldn’t decide whether this was cowardice or bravery on display.

“Not so fast!” Laura gave her hand a shake, staggering all her three of the occupants and causing the Viper to postpone her self-murdering.

A moment later she was caught between Laura’s fingers, screaming.

In retrospect, the bawd might have done the same, Dari judged, so it was probably good not to have taken her. There was only room enough for one such nasty creature in any set of events.  

“Let go of the knife!” Laura shook the whore rapidly back and forth.

But the Viper did not oblige her. The giantess had to set down the other two whores to gain a free hand which she then used to pinch the knife. This, however, inevitably meant catching the hand and part of the arm as well, which in turn led Laura to squeeze her fingertips together and obliterate anything in between.

She was like some child with a small animal, Dari thought, except as far as children went certainly only those who would go on to become bad, evil people could be so cruel.

‘Or poor, like I was.’

She could still remember the taste of stewed cats, puppys rats and mice.

Laura wasn’t poor, though. She probably did not carry any gold or silver and it did not seem apparent that she had any particular interest in coin. Was she to buy soldiers to perform more evil deeds, that was another matter, but she showed no hints of greed for anything other than power. Had she wanted coin, treasure and gemstones, she could’ve taken and hoarded them in amounts stupefying to the imagination.

‘Like a dragon in the stories.’

That might have been a better world, one in which evil could simply be paid off. Greed in itself was another evil, to be sure. Dari had had a little heap of gold and treasure in Gareth herself. But outside of curious frivolities she had never done anything with it. Not really.

Now that she came to think of it, all that her hidden wealth ever did for her was quench the gut-wrenching anxiety which came with having to turn each clipped copper thrice before buying a heel of bread. She had vowed to never again let herself be in such a position.

The Viper screamed and Laura laughed, and below, the Doe cowered while the Horse tried to run away. It didn’t last long enough, though. After a moment of revelling in the whore’s pain, twisting off the ruined arm and obliterating the yield even more, Laura tossed the screaming woman into her mouth and swallowed.

The Horse hadn’t come very far on account of the deep, pristine snows with some drifts stacked higher than a man. Twelve pairs of steps Dari counted, both starting and ending in thin air, like the tracks of a bird.

“Running away is not part of this game.” Laura told her captive. “But since you tried, your little friend now gets the first shot at pleasing me. If she succeeds, you’ll go down the hatch without ever having a try yourself.”

Her mouth opened and closed. Dari looked down at where the Doe was still cowering, whimpering cold and naked in the snow. Laura’s cunt would warm her, certainly. It was a bit unexpected, to be sure.

Had she been made to wager beforehand, Dari would’ve bet on the Viper to win the prize, although winning in this instance could only mean dying last. Seen thusly, mayhaps the Viper had won after all, or at least tried for a quick death. In sight of the loss of her arm and the subsequent being digested alive, it seemed not to have quite worked out as intended. Dari resolved that if she died, she had rather done so in one piece, and preferably quickly.

Laura picked up the Doe and cooed on her in that menacing way her fraudulent good side had. It was almost worse than when she was openly evil. Then, the girl vanished inside the sleeping bag. The Horse vanished from sight as well, in Laura’s fist. That left only the giantess to Dari’s eyes and ears.

She appeared to play with the girl between her legs, as she and Janna had done with folk at Lauraville too. It was a slow process. If Dari was any judge, the Doe was too frightened to do much of anything on her own, not to mention that she never endured Birsel’s lessons. The last time Dari had seen Birsel she had been with Varg the Impaler, and no less vicious than she had been at Lauraville.

Dari crouched on her rock and closed her eyes, trying to think of what the man with black robes and the grey hair had looked like, what the sound of his voice was. But all she heard was Laura’s breath grow shallow.

She knew the sounds of female love. A gasp, the slightest moan, a shiver, the brief snort of annoyance and the hint of a grunt when things were not going the way they should. She opened her eyes.

Laura had her lips pressed together and sat upright, concentrating on the toy between her legs. She appeared not entirely pleased with its performance.

“Fuck this.” She suddenly said aloud. “I hate winter.”

Her undergarments were pink and seemed to resemble those that lesser beings wore. A little more than that, perhaps, because a garment that hugged a body as tightly as this one would have to be made by a pricey tailor well versed in their trade. Dari’s were cheaply made and hung loose on her, not to mention that her tumble with Duke Hagrobald had almost torn them.

There was a wet spot at Laura’s crotch and the slightest hint of a shape where the whore was. The giantess quickly crushed her sleeping bag into a ball and then lowered herself astride it, like a pillow. She only stopped to deposit the Horse underneath the moist place.

“Oh yeah.” It rang from her mouth above when she started violently bucking her hips into the makeshift saddle.

The cold wet on her legs and knees seemed not to perturb her for now, a feat most certainly attributable to her thick skin.

Dari found human self-pleasure quite feeble in comparison to what she saw here. It certainly could look similar, she already knew that, but it did not leave the earth torn like Laura did.

The wanton giantess had no concern left for her tiny charges. Again and again, she ground herself mercilessly on the bolster. A girl of massive proportions had that certain itch between her legs, and people had to die to make it go away. Dari was certain that there was no surviving this. She could not see either whore at this point. Only Laura, the massive, walking, talking reality that could undo people at a whim.

The giantess had her eyes closed and was moaning with pleasure. Then her eyelids fluttered open with a gasp, looking to the skies. Perhaps she considered her pleasure to be godly, Dari pondered with a sour smile, or perhaps she considered herself a god right then and there.

Perhaps she was saying in her head: ‘Look at me, you impotent wimps. Look at what I do to your pets.’

The display lasted for an uncomfortably long moment.

Wordless, Laura ultimately moved off the makeshift pillow to examine the spillage of her evil deed, the small red splotch on her undergarment providing the first foreshadowing to Dari. The Horse had been crushed almost in two, hanging only by a strip of flesh around her belly region. Where her innards were, Dari could only guess, but they were not in her body.

“Thought she’d be tougher than that.” Laura commented with an uncaring smirk before dropping the broken corpse down into the snow. “Oh, but number one is still at large!”

The Doe had made it, somehow. It seemed to defy all logic, but weak, wet and coughing, the tiniest of the whores was withdrawn from Laura’s crotch, crying.

“There, there.” Laura cooed with a chuckle. “You survived! Sorry to say, that means I still have to kill you.”

She put the naked girl on the cold ground more gently, then shifted to place her rear end over her.

“Any last words?”

The Doe was too weak to utter anything of substance, apart from the snot that ran down from her nose. She only lifted a small, tender arm as if it could mitigate what was about to happen to her. She was so hot and wet that her skin was steaming in the cold.

“Guess not.”

Like a hammer on a hazelnut, Laura’s rear end slammed down onto the hapless little girl. A sizeable dent was left when it lifted. The snow was crushed to ice.

“Urgh, bloody cold.” The giantess said to Dari before slamming down one more time. “You can get to work on finding me some criminals next.”

She talked to Dari as though they were colleagues of a trade, working in some shop together, a shop that professionally turned human beings into smears.

Laura poked at the girl in the imprint of her butt, but what came loose looked as thin as a tapestry.

“Word of this might get out from the brothel that these came from.” Dari replied, trying not to look at the flattened whore. “You should have them removed.”

Laura considered for a moment while pulling on her pants, those strange deep blue things that hugged her body as tightly as her undergarments.

“Tell Signor Hatchet to have them arrested.” She finally said. “I wanted to liquidate the dungeon rats anyway, might as well do it in one wash.”

-

Honingen had been built by the doomed. From Abilacht they had been chased and fled north until wild men barred their path. Nobody wanted to have the lepers, who settled in some shabby huts on the edge of the woods. Only one of Peraine’s consecrated women felt sorry for the infirmity.

Theria stayed where all the others turned their faces from bumps, sores and leprosy. Many moons she cared for the doomed and alleviated their suffering with ointments and consolation. Then she fell ill herself.

But Theria quarrelled with the goddess and did not submit to her fate. Even more dead than alive she remained defiant and continued to care for the lepers.

One morning, the holy woman, as she was getting weaker, discovered a pot of honey next to her stove. She did not know who could have brought her the precious sweet juice, but she thanked the unknown donor in her heart and mixed the honey with the day’s porridge for the sickly.

Then, a miracle occurred.

Everyone whose lips touched the honeyed porridge felt ominously strengthened. The boils and welts disappeared, festering wounds healed and by evening all the sick were better. With the news of this miracle many settlers came to “Honingen”, as the place was now called. The soil turned out to be unusually fertile and a city quickly developed there. Theria was still worshipped in Honingen as a saint of the goddess Peraine and her honey pot stood as a sanctuary in the temple.

Until today.

It had to have happened while that fool of Ilmenview had gotten himself eaten, Furio thought, or perhaps shortly after he had been back inside the walls. At some point, the bells of the temples started ringing, and all Netherhells had broken loose. Soon, the entire city was a maelstrom of terrified people. They were everywhere in their futile search, and as soon as the word spread, the terror and fury spread with it.

The wizard was making back for the cellar with his colleagues to tell them of what had occurred, when he was stopped the first time.

“Witcher!” They cursed, brandishing a hammer, a scythe, a pitchfork and a variety of what seemed to be the legs of chairs. “He’s done it, you know he did! Get him!”

The spell to cast them all in flame was on Furio’s lips, but a sergeant of guards saved them and Furio both.

“He’s not to be touched!” The brave man hollered while lowering his spear, his voice slurring as though he was drunk. “No man touches him or all of us will die!”

‘These are still doomed men.’ Furio reflected. ‘They have been, all this time.’

Laura might well be the end of this place lest she moved on, but it did not seem as though she would soon depart to anywhere, other than perhaps Abilacht, which was a stone’s throw away for her at her size.

“If anything,” the valiant, drunk sergeant reasoned, “he’s can help you find the darn thing! What are you missing?”

When they told him, he turned as pale as milk.

“Has this ever happened before?” Furio inquired of the man, dragging him along to avoid more mob justice.

The other shook his head and it seemed to Furio that he could not have spoken even if he wanted to.

The Jar of Holy Theria was little and less to Furio, to be sure, but the city in this state was a dangerous place. He saw men, women and children turn over the most absurd places in looking for it, some even digging in frozen ditches, moving heaps of snow and others climbing on roofs to search the abandoned nests of birds, much as though a magpie might have stolen it.

“A dragon got it!” Someone claimed at a street corner. “It’s been seen flying out of the temple!”

Others told him that he was an idiot, that there had been no dragon and that he had better look out for some thief.

This was because there had been left a great, red scribbling on the crystal shrine in the Peraine temple of Holy Theria that had previously held the Jar. What the contents of that scribbling were, Furio did not know and the rumours that spread like Hylailer Fire were too different from one another to all be true. He knew only that it supposedly spoke of witchcraft and demons and evil, or so everybody claimed.

He needed to reach the cellar quickly, or else someone might think to search it and discover more wizards.

“The end is nigh!” Some ragged preacher called from the top of a barrel. “Repent! Flee! We are all doomed!”

‘Not half wrong.’ Furio thought, before a taller, younger man shoved the preacher and told him in no uncertain terms to shut his mouth.

Hooves pounded from behind, belonging to a group of six lightly-armoured soldiers in green and blue surcoats with one Galahan weasel on the green and the three silver crowns of Albernia on the blue side.

“Abilachter Riders.” The guardsman gave to account. “Haven’t seen them in a while, eh?”

They were apparently led by one who had a gilded nose guard on his helm, a bushy mustachio, as well as a distinctly pinched chin.

“There’s Arvo Lovgold of Weyringhouse-Herlogan!” The guard explained after Furio’s inquiry. “He captains the squadron of riders here in Honingen.”

The Abilachter riders, so Furio had already learned, had three squadrons, two of which were stationed in Abilacht, and one here in Honingen. They were light horse, well trained and very versatile. Their repute had been fierce in the Empire for the longest time ere suffering a tremendous blow due to the regiment abandoning a campaign against the evil-worshippers of the Haunted Lands in order to run back and aid in Invher ni Bennain’s foolish war. In Albernia, however, they were regarded as heroes for this reason.

“Fight!” The man who had shoved the preacher now began to call out in his stead. “Forge your spears in the fires of truth and raise them against the menace that has fallen upon us! Kill the giantess! Kill the false queen and do the will of our gods that are twelve and true!”

The horses slowed to a trot when the man with the gilded nose guard on his helm spotted Furio.

“Master Wizard!” He hollered from his steed. “We are looking for you! Come with us at the behest of the city magistrate! The streets are no safe place for you to be!”

That much, Furio had already learned, but he liked to believe that he had held his own rather well. The fact that he did not carry a large, holy-looking jar had certainly helped in that endeavour.

“There’s a place I must go, Sir…”

“No Sir! Captain will suffice!” Arvo Lovgold replied in a soldiery yet amiable fashion. “Our orders are to escort you either to the barracks or the city hall, whichever one is closer!”

That seemed to imply the barracks, but Furio did not want to go. He shook his head, insisting.

“All hope is lost! There’ll be no new dawn!” The previous preacher complained to the old, shoving him in turn off the barrel.

It seemed the general situation, culminating in the loss of the beloved relic, was hitting some worse than others. A hit, as well, received the doomsday preacher who had now reclaimed his podium. A brawl broke out between the two and Arvo Lovgold appointed two of his men to stop it.

“Bring me the tall one!” The captain of Abilachter Riders commanded as his men ended the duel of fists by lowering their lances into the fray.

“I’ve spoken only truth!” The rebellious man complained, wrestling with his dismounted captor. “If anything, you should join me! A man who does not strike first is first struck!”

He was a comely man in green garb, doublet and pantaloons, leather drawstring shoes and an elegant hat. If Furio had to guess his profession he would have named him a trader, although traders seldom got so substantially involved. The other man was a beggar, or else the most ruinous priest that Furio had ever laid eyes on.

The better-dressed man went on: “Did you not swear oaths, you men, to our true King, King Finnian of House Bennain?!”

Furio’s eyes darted back to Arvo Lovgold in alarm. If the soldiers turned their cloaks then this whole situation could turn from bad to ugly.

The captain, meanwhile, sat calmly in his saddle and gave a reassuring frown.

“There were oaths, yes.” He said with a hint of amusement. “But King Finnian never had the power to crush me under his thumb. Let’s see what the queen will make of you. Take the other one away and cut his tongue out, the city folk are worried enough as it is. Then let him go, and don't expect any complaining.”

Furio breathed again. All this tension was certainly not good. The city was a beehive and the lost honey jar was only the drop that made the barrel overflow. The idea of this man having his tongue ripped out should not have sat well with his stomach, but he had seen so much grinding, crushing and dismemberment by now that he found it hard to care.

There was no time for these considerations in any case.

“Captain, I require you and your men to escort me a little further on.” He told Arvo Lovgold while the dismounted riders were leading the captives off. “There’s a cellar in which colleagues of mine are hiding. I require their aid and counsel in a matter of royal interest.”

The man with the bushy moustache screwed up his face: “Royal interest, eh? Whatever you say, my lord wizard, but be quick about it!”

With the soldiers accompanying them, the going was much quicker. The guardsmen left them to interfere in the looting of an overturned cart along the way, but the riders paid no heed to it. When a crowd outside a smoking house barred their passage, the men beat a path through the press for Furio.

It was shortly thereafter that a new piece of news reached them, carried by running boys screeching over one another so as to be loudest.

“They got it!” They screamed. “They got it, they found it in some cellar with some witchers!”

“The witchers stole it!”

“They got it back!”

“The jar, they found the jar! The witchers stole it!”

This spelled nothing good, Furio knew immediately. He wanted to go faster, but as things stood his weak legs were giving him agony.

People on the street echoed the cries, asking where the wizards were.

“Would this be those colleagues of yours?” Arvo Lovgold asked with a pained expression.

He already knew the answer, looking away after Furio didn’t reply, the eyes behind his golden nose guard finding some distant place and seeking solace there for the moment.

“We have to find them.” Furio finally urged, keeping his voice so that none around would hear. “I am certain that they have nothing to do with the Jar’s theft.”

His conviction was true. Far as he knew, they had not gone from their cellar, so stealing the jar would have been impossible. This had to be some kind of big misunderstanding, as ever so often when wizards and commoners met.

Someone shouted: “They’re burning them on Theria Square!”

Mob justice was always swift, as Furio had almost learned on his own person a little earlier. There was no trial. The verdict was already spoken. Perhaps this was a cunning mechanism, bestowed upon man to overcome the fickle word games of evil. But it was oft misdirected, and thereby oft an evil of its own. 

As the word spread, so did the heads turn. Theria Square was the busiest place in the city, with five streets adjoining to it. Just north of the square was the market hall in which on most given days a market was held, at least before recently.

Any place could be reached from here, the temples, the inns and brothels, the cattle market which was one of the largest in the region, the soap market, the sausage makers who made the famous Honinger Crackers and the papermakers who laid the renowned Honinger Paper. The splendid City Hall was right near the square too and the gates to the Temple of Holy Theria from which the relic had been robbed practically opened onto it.

Furio knew where it was, but even if he hadn’t, he would only have had to follow the others. Everyone was streaming to Theria Square.

He was exhausted, however. And even still, riding would not do. He was too weak.

There was a spell called the Attributo, he thought, hastening on his cane, which could for a short time enhance a body’s capabilities. Mostly that meant either strength or swiftness, it’s use to dapple with such things as wisdom, intuition or charisma being all but unknown.

Furio did not know that spell anyway, so it was a waste of wits pondering. There was a whole host of spells he could not do. A wizard in the army oft had too little time to learn spells other than those of war.

Likewise, other wizards oft neglected any combat spell, bar the odd one or two for self-protection.

“Ride ahead, captain.” He told Arvo Lovgold from below. “I fear we will be too late at this pace.”

The man looked down from his steed: “Ride ahead and do what, wizard? Look around. The whole city is on the march. If anyone can save your colleagues, it is a giantess.”

‘Look around,’ Furio thought bitterly, ‘do you see what’s there? Fear, and frightened people killing what they can’t understand.’

He was about to suggest dispatching a message to Janna when a newly joined Abilachter Rider appeared beside Arvo Lovgold, stood up in his stirrups and leaned over to his captain to give a report. When he had ended, the captain grinned.

“Up on my horse, if you please, my lord.” He half growled, half whispered. “These people are going the wrong way.”

Someone had assumed and told, and the next man had believed, and then the next until all of them were wrong, like ants running in circles. Those boys were to blame, surely.  Nothing was happening at Theria Square after all, and Furio was glad of it.

“Make way!” The Abilachter Riders shouted at the people on foot, beating and forcing their way through.

They had swift horses that weren’t particularly heavy so as not to impair their manoeuvrability. The captain had all but pulled Furio up. Riding double was awkward, but undeniably quicker than what they had done before. If only they had never turned away from their original destination.

Along the way, after they galloped through ever emptier streets at first, something queer happened when they came near the cellar. The amount of running people grew, and they did not share that certain look of relief and anticipation of the others.

Arvo Lovgold noticed and had his men halt, baring the path of one running woman with his horse, asking of her what was happening.

“They are living, milord!” She cried, her voice broken with a kind of terror that so far Furio only knew Laura and Janna could invoke. “They live! They’re not dead, milord, they’re not dead! They’re killing!”

Haunted by unfathomable evil she threw her head over her shoulder, much as though she expected hordes of demons pursuing her. There was nothing, and still she darted around Lovgold’s horse and all but sprinted away.

“I wouldn’t know.” Furio replied to the wordless question emitting from the captain’s eyes. “Perhaps we had best go see.”

If his colleagues were still alive, that could only be good. On second thought, perhaps an illusionary trick or some influence spell had scared away the people. After himself being subjected to the Horriphobus earlier, that seemed more than plausible to him, not to mention cunning.

Seen thusly, perhaps it had been a conjured illusion that had gotten Ephraim O. Ilmenview accused of necromancy in the first place. Not that it mattered anymore.

When they galloped on, he told the captain about his suspicion regarding the remaining wizards, praying all the same that his colleagues would not mistake the riders for enemies.

“What’s going on?” He could hear Laura ask, mighty as much as perplexed and way to the north of the city. “Why is everyone acting like this?”

She would probably not be able to help them, not that Furio expected this to be necessary. It would certainly be best if she used her imposing stature to restore order, lest more innocent people were hurt in the looting and rioting.

Finally, they rode around the corner to the street where the house with the cellar stood. It was not a wealthy part of the city, rather quiet and not very busy at all. The houses were quite newly built, though, and so things did not look old and decrepit. This was because Honingen had once hoped to become Albernia’s capital for good while Havena belonged to the Horasian Empire. It had therefore torn down its old walls to make wider ones, to accommodate all the masses of inhabitants it expected to acquire. Those people never came, however, and Honingen was never more than the interim capital, with king, nobility and country unwilling to forsake their capital of old.

As a result, the city was quite spacious. There were many green patches within its walls, many trees and such that in a more crammed place might have had to go. Contrary to many other cities, it allowed and incorporated graveyards too, where the final resting places of the dead were marked with stone or wooden Broron Wheels.

This all was indeed quite pleasant.

The scene out front of the house was not, however. That much, Furio saw at once.

“Aw, Phex!” Lovgold cursed under his breath.

A man in grey but not in robes hung by his neck from a tree. He proved to be Corvinius Corinthis. The other end of the rope was tied to an iron wall ring meant for reins.

He looked very much dead, his eyes open, his face grey and his tongue thick and black pushing out from his lips that were blue as evening. He was the man Furio needed, and seemingly the only one of his colleagues to have died. The others were missing.

Strangely, beneath his corpse, there were other bodies, those of common city folk, as well as signs of carnage and mayhem such as an overturned cart, pools of blood and red, muddy snow.

Furthermore, as they got closer, they discovered that the bodies had been severely brutalized, disembowelled or missing entire limbs. Some looked as though they had been chewed on.

This had to be the illusion. The only question was whether the wizards had fled or disguised themselves, magically, as the bodies.

“Keep your wits about your eyes, men!” The captain of riders growled. “Whatever did this might still be lurking in the shadows.”

“I do not think so.” Furio resolved while sliding off the side of the horse, the impact with the ground making his knees buckle. “This is no more than a cunning trick!”

He walked to the corpses. There were neither flies nor ravens at them, strengthening his suspicion even though the smells of blood, shit and death were clearly there. There were different grades of illusions, more or less real. An accomplished illusionist could create a veritable fraud of reality for a time.

He picked up a severed arm, mesmerized at how real it felt to the touch. For the purpose at hand, it seemed excessive. If these corpses were indeed his colleagues, on the other hand, it would probably make sense.

“Come out now!” He shouted. “We are friends!”

A faint, female scream and some commotion in one of the adjacent houses was the only reply. The Abilachter Riders brandished their lances and looked around in fear. The horses were restless and uncomfortable.

“Come on, now, stop this charade! We are here to save you!”

Perhaps it was impossible to end this spell at a whim, only reverting after its predetermined time.

Furio had to admit that the scene was bone-chilling. Every sound seemed excessively loud in the silence, only echoes of Laura’s scolding curses breaking it every now and then, as well as the frightened snorting of the mounts.

Laura was beginning to figure out that Theria’s Jar was missing, but why the culprits were not at the square, nobody seemed to know or be willing to tell her.  

“What do you mean, you don’t know what it looks like?!” She could be heard fuming. “Stop speaking all at once! You’ve never seen it up close? How can it be so bloody important then, huh, you little idiots?! I ought to step on all of you for being so stupid, stop talking all at the same time!”

A rattle and scratching noises from an open doorway made everyone turn their heads in alarm, but a moment later the source turned out to be only a minuscule puppy dog scurrying out of a building.

Captain Arvo complained: “What in the name of all bloody Twelve is going on here?! What illusion is this supposed to be, I only see dead men!”

Furio almost laughed, had not some queer sudden movement caught his eye, faint but very close to him. He looked but there was nothing, apparently. The spell was fooling him.

“Eight men and four women.” He corrected and pointed with the fraud severed arm.

“Nine men.” A rider added in turn, pointing with his lance to Corvinius Corinthis.

“Aye.”

That was queer, though. Thirteen bodies was way more than there were supposed to be wizards.

Suddenly, above, Corvinius Corinthis moved. It was not a living move, however, if there was such a thing. It came very suddenly, a jolt that set body, rope and tree to swinging.

The horses shied and screamed, the riders pulling at their reins with horror behind their nose guards.

Furio was confused, a circumstance which he resolved only an Analysis spell could rectify.

He cast the spell silently, while Arvo Lovgold made another decision.

“He’s still alive!” He shouted. “Cut him down.”

The arcane structures of the world, or largely the lack thereof, began to unfold before Furio’s eyes. The rest was shadow, grey and black, like through a silken curtain.

There wasn’t much at first, only a glint of something half buried under one of the bodies. The bodies themselves were not arcane, meaning that they were real. He went to retrieve the object.

There was the clanger of metal on metal when a soldier started beating the iron ring with his lance.

Lovgold was cursing: “For Theria’s sake, man, use a bloody blade!”

A golden jar was in Furio’s hands, enchanted silvery-white, very strongly. It might have been the holy, old honeypot, but there was something else too.

When he tilted it, he could see letters, glinting in screaming purple, the colours of necromancy.

‘We live.’ It read there, as though someone had edged it into the jar with a knife. ‘Not dead.’

With shaking hands, Furio turned the object to see how it went on.

‘We live.’ It read again on the backside in those same crude letters. ‘We kill.’

He looked up at Corvinius Corinthis, his eyes mesmerizing nests of purple lines.

“No!”

Too late, he knew when he saw the soldier’s dagger bite through the hempen rope.

Corinthis’ body came crashing down, hitting the cobbles with a sickening crunch. But that was not where he stopped moving.

Suddenly, the jar in Furio’s hands began to light purple. More lines started to emit from it, flow from it, ensnaring everything, first him and then the bodies at his feet as well. Some demon was living inside this jar, that much was clear.

“Wizard!” Arvo Lovgold shouted in alarm.

Furio turned, thinking that he had been called. That wasn’t clear, however, as now there was  Corvinius Corinthis too, on the ground with broken legs, seemingly in the process of biting Lovgold’s mare in the leg.

It was as though all Netherhells broke loose at once. Lovgold screamed, as did his steed while she rose to her hind quarters and threw him, kicking at the dead visitator with a bloodied hoof.

A quick-witted rider lanced Corinthis in the back, but the evil undead creature only turned its head and proceeded to crawl at him in turn.

Furio felt the Analysis spell fading already, just before he chanced to see the bodies rise all with purple eyes.

‘This is the middle of a nightmare!’ He thought. ‘This is Demon Bog all over again!’

Not the first part, though. They had been fighting peasants and rotten corpses then. This was the second part, when the fresh bodies of the newly slain had risen, including their own brothers in arms.

‘Frabrizio, how much longer must you haunt me?’

The severed arm in his hand started twitching, and he dropped it immediately, snapping back to his senses.

He saw Arvo Lovgold on the ground, struggling against Corvinius Corinthis. The other riders had kicked their mounts with their spurs, but if to flee or charge back in was unknowable. The undead visitator clawed at the captain’s gambeson, trying to get at his guts while the beleaguered living man was ramming his dagger repeatedly into the slick hair atop that hanged man’s skull.

‘The others,’ Furio thought, spinning. ‘Where are the other wizards?’

They weren’t there, but the other corpses were rising. Furio found himself in mortal danger at once.

“Wizard!” Lovgold screeched on the ground, still stabbing into the increasingly mushy head. “Help me, you bloody bugger!”

 A dead woman with only one arm was coming for Furio, though. She was walking right at him, her wide, open eyes staring into the void.

‘Ignifaxius!’ He thought. ‘Lance of fire!’

Before a lance of steel and wood rushed past his ear, taking the woman in the chest and catapulting her backwards.

Pointy weapons were rubbish, though. Corvinius Corinthis had one through the back, and it didn’t do anything to stop him.

“Blades!” Furio screamed. “You have to hack their limbs off!”

It was a lesson direly learned at the Demon Bog. There were other ways too, of course. Burning the living dead seemed to work wonders, provided one could get them to catch fire. One Abilachter Rider with a remarkably well-trained horse had ridden over one of the monsters and now had his mare jump repeatedly between hind- and forequarters, pulping the undead foe under her hooves.

He lingered too long, however, and three others swarmed him. He managed barely to regain control of his panicking horse and kick it in motion to ride down one more foe and secure his escape.

“Wizard!”

Lovgold was in dire peril, Corinthis now clawing up his torso, the two of them entangled in a knot of life and death. Furio couldn’t help him. He had no blade at hand and any spell of his would have set alight the captain of riders as well.

There was a spell with which a sorcerer could summon into his hands a sword of fire. But Furio did not know that spell either.

‘Did I know it once?’ He wondered strangely in the chaos that ensued.

He couldn’t remember. He forgotten so much.

“We have to do something!” A rider shouted. “Watch out, there’s more!”

They had been hunting down more city folk, Furio knew when he saw two of his grey-robed colleagues emerge from the open doorway where the puppy had scurried from, blood running from their hands and mouths. It were the drinker and the old woman from the cellar, one a bashed skull, the other a slit throat for causes of passing.

Necromancy in their instances seemed to have made them queerly more lively than Furio remembered. It was all an accumulation of most unfortunate circumstances.

Two soldiers rode charges to drive the large group of undead away from Furio and the captain, buying them time. Furio,  meanwhile, was aware that he was standing around like a bloody liability. This could not continue.

He brought his hand to his shoulder and mumbled the formula, then stretched out his arm and pointed one finger at each of his oncoming colleagues.

Two lances of fire snaked through the air toward their targets. A moment later, two grey-robed figures were engulfed in flame.

“Aaaah-ah!”

Lovgold apparently had resolved that he needed to help himself, so he kicked the living corpse off somehow and made to his feet. He did not carry a sword or a cleaver or any blade, just a riding hammer with one flat side and a pointy one the shape of a raven’s beak.  

Little and less was left of Corinthis’ skull at this time, but that did little more than impair the creature’s aptitude for biting.

To stop the grasping hands, the captain seemed to aim for the shoulder joints, but before his blow could fall did another Ignifaxius of Furio’s end the former visitator’s writhing.

“Took you bloody long enough!” Lovgold cursed. “Phex, what do we do?!”

“Destroy them!” Furio replied.

There was no saving the undead. They were doomed. Even their souls could not inherit the realm of Boron. It was the Netherhells for them, even if through no fault of their own.

“Drive them together!” Furio urged the soldiers. “Let me set them alight!”

It wasn’t working particularly well, for the undead were notoriously stubborn. They had no will of their own, in truth, only reacting to their surroundings according to their creator’s design.

On and on they came, pulling down first one of the riders and then another. They fell over one horse too and proceeded to scoop out into its long, red entrails with bloody hands.

“Watch out!” Arvo Lovgold shouted suddenly, pointing at the attacking rest of Honingen’s arcane teachers, now a posse of ravaging monsters fit only to die a second time.

Furio had almost forgotten how much a powerful Ignisphereo Fireball spell hurt. The sensation of his own burning skin almost made him lose control over it, not to mention the smell. The pain coiled in his hand and snaked up his arm, but he grit his teeth and focused his mind, and delivered the spell to devastating effect.

The following explosion of vicious arcane flame resolved the new threat in a heartbeat, but it also taxed Furio so much that he found himself on the ground, his head pounding.

‘No kaftan, though.’ He thought. ‘No turban. No Retoban the Blue.’

The soldiers were doing their bravest but had to struggle dearly, still holding off the main onslaught. It almost seemed as though the dying horse stopped more of the undead creatures than them. That was dire news, because the animal would soon run out of bowels. Then it would die, and the monsters would lose interest in it.

All lances were broken at this point and the men had only one single short sword between them. A man had lost whatever weapon he had had and was fighting with a leather saddle that he used for a shield. Another man had a flail, a spiked ball on a chain, and he used it to break bones and crack heads open.

If only that did anything.

The undead felt neither pain nor exhaustion. The spell could run out, if it indeed had been a spell that levied them. But there were other, crueller ways to create zombies as well. Cursed ground, haunted places, or certain kinds of demons that were the servants of Thargunitoth, precentress of the howling dark, the arch-demonic enemy of Boron - all these could raise the dead, and then there was no saying how long they’d last.

In this instance, however, the jar had been responsible. This raised a lot of questions that Furio’s aching mind was not prepared to answer. Had Ephraim O. Ilmenview dabbled in necromancy after all, and where his fellow teachers in league with him, and had they really stolen the holy jar and altered it somehow to perform evil? It seemed a long stretch. The old, wispy fool had proven himself innocent at trial, which was a feat that few could lay claim to.

And had he been guilty after all, why would he have gotten himself devoured?

That didn’t bear pondering, especially now.

“Wizard!” Arvo Lovgold shook him by the shoulder. “More fire!”

Furio could only shake his head, his powers spent, perhaps unwisely. He couldn’t decide whether his hand or his head were giving him more agony. It was terrible, truly.

“Take this away from here.” He pointed at the jar on the ground where he must have dropped it. “Bring it to safety.”

It was all he could do.

The soldiers had held their own, like true heroes. They had succeeded in neutralizing or at least debilitating five of the creatures, but ultimately it took but one move a heartbeat too late for their line to falter. One made away. The others tried but were caught and dragged down by the evil necromantic slaves.

“We must get away from here!” The captain lifted Furio by the armpits and pulled him to him to his feet.

“I cannot.” Furio replied to him. “Leave me here. Take the jar and go! You must prevent more people from dying!”

He had sworn to serve his people, more than once. This meant humanity. Perhaps it was what the Twelve expected of him, but in any case, this last good deed they couldn’t hold against him.

“Go!”

Terror was written all over Arvo Lovgold’s face. Then he chose life.

Leaning on his cane, Furio faced off against the undead. He cast a last glance to the skies above, hoping that perhaps Laura came to safe him, that perhaps she had seen his spells or someone had told her where the jar had originally been rediscovered. Perhaps the smoke of the burning men alerted her too. But as things stood, fires were burning all over the city.

Above him was nothing, and he resigned to his fate. He did not even posses a way to kill himself mercifully quickly.

‘Perhaps if I just stop breathing.’

The gods would hold that against him, though. And he would meet them. Lovgold had taken the accursed jar.

But as Furio stood there with his pounding head and throbbing hand, the undead ignored him. When all they could kill was killed, two wandered off whilst the others simply remained standing there. It was odd.

“Are you Rohal reborn?” A voice asked from behind, so suddenly and out of nowhere that he shrieked.

The speaker stood a mere two steps behind him, and wasn’t much to look upon at all. His short and thin stature suggested lowly birth, and his garb was a rough-spun black robe. A shock of mouse-grey hair sat atop one of the most ordinary heads that Furio had ever seen, but the face beneath it was young and pristine.

In combination, these traits made the young man quite remarkable after all. Furio’s eyes discovered the hourglass hanging from a belt of rope, with sand steadily running through, next to some sack cloth bundle.

“You!” He said, questions upon questions piling in his mind. “You did this?!”

The strange black sorcerer frowned: “Did what, exactly?”

‘You stole the jar, caused the riot and raised the dead. You are responsible for the deaths of all these people, and only Hesinde knows what else.’

“All of this!” Furio gestured around.

In truth, the death toll of today could hardly compare even with a regular sacking, judging by what Furio had seen. It certainly fell short of what Janna and Laura could do when they wanted. But it was still unnecessary and the horrors this necromancy could still inflict upon the city were yet ahead of them.

The black wizard gave only a shrug.

“Why then?!” Furio took a step toward him, his head almost splitting in half from the pain. “Why did you do this?!”

The other sighed and remained silent for a long moment.

Then he tittered, very suddenly: “Mayhem? Ha, chaos, if you will. Mischief, I’d say. Evil. Why does anyone ever do anything? True words spoken in jest. Studying my enemies, perhaps. Or else I was still young and playful from whence I come, and foolish.”

Madness, Furio thought. It was never far from those who dabbled in black magic, as well as the propensity for long, self-aggrandizing speeches. Water was wet and black wizards were mad, and evil, and everything else too.

That was no doubt the only reason that Furio wasn’t a dead man yet, or an undead one at that.

As if to confirm his judgement, the black wizard studied him with wide open eyes.

“Trivialities aside, it is quite curious. I don’t know the outcome of this yet.”

Furio decided that it was probably too cryptic to have any meaning. In any event, his mind was racing. If truth be told, all his life, all his training had been a grand anticipation of this very moment. It was only unfortunate that now where he found himself here, he did not have any of his astral powers left to go through the steps that his teachers had so painstakingly taught him.

One might almost have called it ironic, the same way that Corvinius Corinthis of all people had ended up a necromantic slave.

“Whatever the outcome.” The black wizard remarked insecurely with a look up at the sound of Laura’s voice. “Uh, I come only to talk to you about something.”

“What did you do to that jar?!” Furio interrupted him, feeling the rage boiling at the back of his throat.

He did not want to parley, but he had no choice. Perhaps if he wasted enough time talking, he would get a chance to rid the world of whatever evil this was. All it took was one unanticipated Ignifaxius. That was as good a plan as any.

“You will all go home now!” Laura boomed over everything and everyone with ease. “I will step on anybody still outside within the hour! It’s your choice, but if you are still outside by evenfall, I will crush you flat and I don’t care who you are!”

“That means us, too.” The black sorcerer frowned, half serious. “Perhaps we shouldn’t linger.”

Furio growled at him: “Answer my question or hold your tongue, evildoer! I will not stand here and listen to your yapping, every word of you an insult to gods and men! With any luck you will end up crushed to gruel under our giant queen!”

He spat onto the ground, trying to provoke the black sorcerer into wasting more time. If truth be told, the yapping one was him. As to the threat, yes, if Laura so happened to step on this man, Furio would not grudge it. But if this one was worth his salt then that would never happen.

His enemy smiled thinly: “Uh, no. Having something large and heavy fall upon my head is not what intend to do this time. Contrary to you, I did not squander my powers. I shall be out of here momentarily, after you have listened to me speak.”

Furio needed to prevent it.

“Say what you will.” He turned is head. “I am not listening. What’s the point, given that you will kill me anyway?”

The question was more serious than he posed it, and contrary to his words did he listen very carefully.

The other looked disappointed and sighed: “Who said anything about killing you? Have you not noticed my zombies being explicitly instructed not to cross a hair on your head? I must say, that’s rather disappointing. I had thought you might become my grand challenger.”

It was more mad nonsense, Furio judged. Perhaps he should edge the conversation towards more sensible matters, information about the black sorcerer so as to be better prepared next time, if there ever was to be the opportunity.

“Who are you?!” He bellowed quickly, ere this evil man could continue with whatever strange game this was.

The question coincided rather unfortunately with another noisy outburst of Laura: “What is going on here?! Why are there people crawling out of the ground?!”

“I think your man Lovgold just rode past the boneyard.” The man laughed. “Don’t look at me like that, I didn’t want this to happen, it was your doing.”

Something was wrong about this, Furio knew, but something was also right. He had given Lovgold the jar and told him to make away with it. The implications were horrid.

“What did you do to the Holy Jar?” He asked again, whispering this time and refusing to look at his enemy for the nonce.

This time, he meant it.

“Oh, that wasn’t the Holy Jar. Solid gold? You’d think Theria might have sold it rather than keeping it. I put the Nirraven in it, but not to worry, I’ll take it off your hands shortly. I need it for something else. This is the jar you are looking for.”

He reached into his cloth bundle and produced it, a small, mundane-looking, brown stone-clay pot with a little lid. A honeycomb was made into its front, giving it a cute look, as though nothing evil could ever come of it.

Furio breathed and took it from the black sorcerer’s hands.

“The Jar of Holy Theria?” He asked. “Why are you giving it to me?”

His mind was spinning. It didn’t make any sense. True enough, few of the evildoers’ deeds were ever sensible, but kind they were never. The jar itself felt in his hands as would any other. It was lighter than the golden one had been.

“Aha!” The black sorcerer grinned. “Are we done with this mummers’ farce then? Very well, I am giving this to you to hasten the recovery of a mutual friend of ours. She’s got a belly ache, and my heart aches with it, believe it or not.”

Furio was only more perplexed at that: “Janna? Why?!”

The nameless man turned and let his eyes wander to the other end of the street where part of Laura’s menacing form could be seen above the houses.

“So much more lively-looking, aren’t they,” he asked, “when they are alive?”

Furio shook his head in bewilderment: “Will she die? How is this supposed to help her?!”

The head snapped back impatiently: “The same way it helped the lepers in that story! Put some honey in it, put it in a porridge and feed it to her, what do you think?!”

Furio regarded the object in his hands suspiciously: “So, it works?”

That would be thoroughly unthinkable, not to mention unlikely. If truth be told, Furio had always thought of this and other sacred relics as little more than the items of tales, bar the few that contained magic glyphs or had been laden with spell-work, nothing out of the ordinary.

The black magician’s eyes widened with sudden rage: “Pardona have mercy on me, are you as thick as a castle wall?! Yes, it works, try it on some beggar if you don’t believe me! The real question is, what kind of good people would lock this thing into a crystal shrine, but you lot never think of that, do you?! You’re all the same, the lot of you, with your shaven heads and white robes! Oh-so-pure and good because you say so! But comes a doubter, why, then he must evil, mustn’t he?!”

A vein was bulging underneath his forehead when the tirade was done. He’s speech had turned horrid and screeching, the embodiment of hate.

Furio’s hands were shaking. The young, pristine face before him had transformed into a grotesque mask of vile disgust, which changed back very suddenly when the black wizard looked down at his hourglass and flipped it over on two metal hooks, just as the last few kernels were running through it.

The words, Furio was vaguely familiar with. Members of the Brotherhood of Knowing, the Black Guild, were said to often spout such talk in order to sow doubts in the true hearts of their adversaries.

Furio would not let it happen to him.

Vibrations could be felt in the ground, and in the distance, Laura was grunting. She was stomping things at her feet.

“I am done here.” The black wizard said and vanished from sight, all at once, without even so much as a gesture.

Furio’s head was pounding.

“Why is this happening, damn it?!” Laura shouted over the city.

The undead were still standing idly in the street. The corpses he had set alight were still smouldering.

‘Not Retoban, though.’ He thought. ‘The alchemist was not among them.’

He stood there thinking and smoking the very last of his Stoerrebradt’s until Laura found him some time later, looking for more zombies. The sun was setting, and the street was cast in twilight, but she saw, stepped on and crushed the remaining undead all the same, with all the horrid sounds that it entailed. Furio was so deep in thought that he hadn’t even noticed her coming.

Crushing seemed to be the most effective way of disabling the undead. They were doomed anyway. There was no saving them. Now they would never rise again to harm a living soul, while their own souls froze for bitter eternity in the Netherhells. It was the true evil of the deed.

Unexpectedly, the shadow of Laura’s gargantuan foot then fell over him, and lowered more quickly than he had time to say or do anything. If truth be told, he didn’t even know if he still cared. It then stopped abruptly and turned aside.

“Furio?” Laura asked above, perplexed and angry. “What are you doing here?!”

He puffed, unafraid, thinking inconclusively about that question: “I have run out of pipe weed!”

‘That much, at least, I know.’

Her face softened and she laughed in that truly lively way she could have sometimes: “I almost crushed you, stupid wizard! That pipe saved your life, don’t you know?”

He filled is lungs with smoke one more time: “Be sure to tell Janna, if you would? She seems to be rather convinced that it will kill me.”