Stillborn children, Saturn’s children, the screaming dead. We have created this abyss, darkness, surrounding us. Raise the flag of hate against this human race. Rise and kill. And wipe them all away.

It was day two after Honingen’s Nameless Day, as people had taken to call it. It hadn’t been a Nameless Day at all, but Garvin understood that it was just a saying. The events of that day had been horrible, so much so that he knew it only from gruesome tales. When he and Cathal had heard about the Jar of Holy Theria having been stolen, they had been playing ‘Man at Arms’ for City Magistrate Belisa Tibradan and her mostly self-styled ladies. Like headless chickens they had all begun running around in terror, and the private audience had been at a sudden end.

It was thankful, after all, to be there. Seeing the living dead claw their way out of the frozen ground would have been like to make Garvin’s heart stop. Cathal, while they abided stuck in their locale, had somehow attained entrance to the City Hall’s wine cellar, and caused quite a chaos in there. He had drunk himself half to death and not even fully recovered two days later, which was horrid given that they were due to perform in front of Laura today.

It was a day late, to be sure. But after the undead onslaught that had left nearly a hundred people dead - Laura’s uncaring feet sharing their fair share of the blame, to hear the stories – the city needed a day to mourn their dead and observe the Boron priests sort out body parts and bury everyone with the appropriate rites. The whole of Honingen had been smelling of incense, and the bells had rung from dawn till dusk as if to remind them all.

That being all well and proper, Garvin did not feel as though the flame that had ignited the riot had guttered out. The Holy Jar had thus far not been returned to the city, and there were other things as well, mainly scarcity. Wine was rationed strictly now because Janna and Laura consumed veritable lakes of it at a time, and the foods and drinks that made the daily toil worthwhile seemed harder and harder to acquire. Price controls had been abolished to restore availability but the measure resulted in a very steep increase in prices too. Without ongoing trade, the city was dying.

The countess had allowed money lending, perhaps to somehow encourage Phexen activities and lessen the stranglehold. But the new vice was unfamiliar to the local populace, not knowing how to engage it, not to mention that it did nothing to increase the amount of wares on the market.

All in all, Garvin was of the notion that many of whose faces he saw on the streets would soon be leaving the city, although none would ever speak of it openly. But another spark, something, anything, could surely ignite another riot also. Perhaps he and Cathal had best go back to Niamor after today, or some place else entirely.  

“What do you say we try our luck elsewhere?” He asked the squire beside him.

Cathal was dressed up in his finest clothes, fur-lined boots, sandy britches and quilted doublet over which he wore the colours of house Ardwain. Their sigil was a panting dog over a blood-red river. Garvin had heard it said in jest that it was the lapdog of Albenblood, due to the Ardwain’s loyalty to their liege’s house.

Cathal only moaned in reply, his head firmly in the grasp of his hand with his elbow resting atop his knee. Garvin was anxious.

They were situated between a couple of tents that had been thrown up against the city walls, belonging to the knights who would joust in the tourney. There were a couple of things planned for today, including a trial, a game of Imman, Garvin and Cathal’s performance, and of course Queen Laura receiving oaths of fealty from those Lords and Ladies that had made their way to Honingen and wished to express their desire of continuing to possess their lands and titles.

That was a bit controversial. The nobility that crowded the foremost ranks of the wooden galleries, thrown up one on each side of Laura’s intended place, had once been sworn to King Finnian. Many of their family members had to be with him now, still, down south, doing Hesinde knew what.

Like some monumental host that she carried around with her at all times, Laura’s size enabled her to break those bonds, or rather to bend them. It would be for her to decide what would happen to those who seemed to try and dance on two Travia Pacts at once, and not least because of this was everyone a little nervous.

No one seemed to know what the trebuchets were for either. They stood in front of the tents, their idle arms aimed at where Laura would be sitting. The dungeons had been emptied as well.

Food was being prepared inside the walls, huge bronze and copper kettles full of mulled wine and thick ale, black and brown, wagonloads of bread, greasy bacon, butter and yellow cheese too. Butchers Street had been running with blood from all the slaughtering, it was said, and many goods had been confiscated. One could have had a half-decent feast for all the city from everything that was made, but the common people would have none of it, and many guards were watching eagle-eyed for thieves.

From where Cathal and Garvin were sitting, they probably had a better view of the tourney grounds than most people, at least those not on the city walls or one of the galleries. The commoners were crowding thickly, as ever at such an event.

“Yes, yes, I will write to that steward…what’s his name…Tibradan?” A voice said behind them.

It was the newly appointed Governor of Albernia, a man by the name of Hatchet, like an axe with which to cruelly chop off the heads and hands of those who disobeyed. The Horasian was tall and had previously possessed an air of immaculacy about him. This was no longer the case.

His long, black hair was greasy now and hung loose from his head, no longer bound in an elegant ponytail. Wine stained his clothes that looked as though he had slept in them, and dark rings were under his eyes. People in inns and wine sinks said that Queen Laura had used him, no less while standing right over the entire city. It was easy to see how such could break a man.

“Taladan!” A small, slender and outstandingly pretty woman by his side corrected impatiently. “Turon Taladan! Tibradan is the City Magistrate’s name, you may know her since you now live in the same bloody house!”

“Alright!” The Governor meant to hush her. “Just not so loud, I beg you! Taladan then.”

The woman crossed her arms over almost inexistent breasts challengingly: “Are you to blame for our lack of wine after all?! How much have you drunk, Léon? Turon Taladan is over there, you might as well go and speak with him!”

The governor’s head snapped toward where Garvin was sitting, and the singer quickly went to study his feet, hoping he hadn’t been discovered eavesdropping. It was best to leave such powerful people undisturbed and not to tinker with any of their endeavours.

The woman was a person of note too, having come to Honingen with Janna and Laura. No one seemed to know her name, but Garvin had heard that her job was the acquisition of hapless victims for the Queen, an occupation that led her to have the Seven Tulamidian Nights upended the day before, and everyone there thrown into the dungeons for dabbling with Mibeltube.

“Tell me, what are these catapults for again?” The Governor asked pointedly.

Garvin could hear where his mouth was directed, right at his and Cathal’s backs. A life of music had made him an extraordinary listener.

The little woman sighed but replied in a hushed voice: “To lob prisoners at Laura so that she can catch them with her mouth and eat them. It’s meant to be her entertainment, and to show the people how little their lives are to her.”

“Do we have enough prisoners for this ambition?”

“We’ve made a few. Anyone that mouthed off or was caught looting, mostly, add those whores. But we can always make a few more.”

To Garvin’s alarm he saw Cathal drunkenly turn his head.

“We’re meant to sing for the queen,” He hollered, swaying, “not be flung in no catapult!”

He swayed a bit too much to the right at last and fell off the bushels of hay on which he was sitting, toppling it over in his fall. His wineskin upended, dousing his chest in mead ere he hectically saved any more drink from spilling.

He laid there in the hay, a sorry excuse for a squire, his love for his wineskin leaving him unable to get up.

“You are Garvin Blaithin,” the woman’s voice said behind, much closer now, “the singer who sings the ‘Man at Arms’. What is that, though, I wonder?”

She was referring to Cathal on the ground.

Garvin turned, his head lowered, studying their feet instead: “I beg pardon, my lady. This is Cathal Ardwain, squire to the Lord of Feyrenwall. He sings with me.”

“Praios have mercy, he looks worse than I do.” The Horasian Governor remarked.

“Aye, my lord.” Garvin bobbed his head.

He didn’t know what else to say.

“We, uh…I…” He stammered when neither of them would say anything. “We’re meant to sing. It’s true. Please don’t fling us with the catapult! The Queen will be very wroth, she will!”

Surely, they had to be afraid of Laura, but just as soon as he had said it, Garvin wasn’t so sure anymore.

The woman scoffed: “I don’t think that there is in any condition to sing. But be that as it may. You may try, and if you fail then the two of you are going to be sweetmeats. Do singers taste as sweet as their tongues, do you reckon?”

Garvin swallowed hard but he was also appalled. The little woman had a reputation for being heartless, but hearing her say it herself was another thing entirely. Mostly, though, he was afraid of ending in Laura’s belly.

As a response, the Governor suddenly cleared his throat: “Uh, you may ask her afterwards. Here comes our queen!”

Garvin’s head snapped back around, just as he felt the tremors. Janna was sick and sleeping most of the time. She had gotten up earlier, taken one tired, disinterested look at the proceedings and then went forth in search of some place to squat. Now, she was sleeping again.

Laura looked very much awake, though, like some evil demon looking down at its prey. Elia had sometimes had that look about her. It was most often followed by having to make love.

“Ah, there we are.” The giantess announced, smiling. “I have to say, I am impressed with these preparations. Didn’t look like you were going to get it done in time.”

She went to both knees where the ground had been laid out with a plethora of furs, skins, wax cloths and blankets to keep the Queen’s enormous legs from getting wet. After the sudden blizzard the cold had moved off again, and the snow had melted, leaving everything wet and muddy underfoot and causing some amount of flooding.

Garvin could see the Countess of Honingen, Franka Salva Galahan, say something that made everyone around her burst with laughter and produced a little giggle from the Queen.  

“Well then,” Laura announced, “you are all living under my heel now. Many of you have suffered friends, neighbours, family members crushed or eaten by me. No doubt have I treated some of you worse than others. You should know, however, that you all mean equally little to me. I am big and you are small, and if you don’t do as I say then I’ll just keep killing more of you until you obey me.”

It hung in the air, the silence that followed so thick that one could have carved it up with a dagger. Then, Laura laughed.

“Time for my breakfast!” She bellowed. “I think we had best start with the schedule, or we’ll be sitting here until evenfall. I want to get through with everything today. What’s first on the list?”

The confused, bedraggled Governor of Albernia stirred, leaning to the small woman: “Uh, what is first on the list?”

“Well, that would be our two singing sweetmeats.” She replied, not without amusement. “Herald! Announce Garvin Blaithin and his drunk Man at Arms!”

Trumpeters strutted forward from between the tents, blowing a fanfare, and a herald clad head to toe in Honinger colours marched out onto the acre between the tourney and Imman fields.

Garvin’s heart was racing as a deep, throttling panic settled in his chest: “Cathal!”

He grabbed the boy with his fists and shook him, but he was unresponsive. It took so long to wake him up that it was already time to march out there.

“Come with me!”

Garvin’s vision blurred. He could see the gigantic outline of the Queen that he had to sing for. He felt blackout drunk, somehow, his feet not quite remembering how to walk. He could hear folk on the galleries laughing at him when he stumbled.

When he looked down, he saw to his relief that he had brought his lute. When he looked behind himself, however, he saw that Cathal was not following him. Then everything went black.

He woke up flat on his back, lying upon a warm surface. Laura’s mouth was rushing up to him.

‘This is it.’ He thought. ‘I have failed, and now I am going to be her sweetmeat, just like the woman said.’

But Laura’s lips never parted, pursing instead to press a wet kiss on the entirety of his body. The moisture of her breath washed over him, dampening his clothes. Then her huge mouth curled into a smile.

“Wonderful.” She husked. “What a nice surprise, Garvin, and so sweet to be seeing you again. We will catch up later.”

He had no idea what that meant. She lowered him to the ground and set him on his feet that started walking all on their own will. The people around were infuriated, or else they were…

‘Cheering.’ He noted perplexed. ‘They are cheering me.’

“You bloody fox, eh?! Ha, ha!” A big crossbow man clapped him on the shoulder. “Watch the stones on this one! Ah, that was something to have seen, it truly was!”

Garvin was utterly perplexed, but his feet just kept walking.

Like in a dream, He ended up where he had begun, by the tents at the other end of the field. The Governor and the heartless lady were scrutinizing him with approval.

“What happened?” He heard himself ask weakly, taking the mead skin from Cathal who was sleeping on the ground.

It did not seem as though they were even listening to him.

“A Rondrian deed, almost.” The Governor chuckled. “Well done, Blaithin.”

The woman did a little dance and started singing: “You take my life, but I take yours too! You loose your crossbow but I run you through! The thistles prick and the thistles fall! You’ll have no victory at Feyrenwall! Wherever did you come up with that music, so…warlike!”

Her voice was full of strange admiration.

“The battle at Weyringen Castle,” he lied between sips of mead from Cathal's skin, feeling some fool’s courage, “Ilaen Albenblood’s great victory. Feyrenwall rhymes better than Weyringen Castle, though.”

It had been Reo Conchobair’s victory at the time too, before Laura had crushed him as flat as a sheet of parchment. Now it had to be Ilaen Albenblood’s, currently recovering from a wound sustained by a traitor’s quarrel. Such details were always important to a singer.

Where the song truly came from, or the words currently from his mouth, Garvin did not know. He did not even know how his new song went, other than that verse by the woman.

‘She has no sense for music, though.’ He thought. ‘She sang that all wrong.’

“It seems we have underestimated you, singer.” Governor Hatchet said. “You weren’t leading us on, were you?”

It was only half in jest, Garvin deduced from the slightly narrowed eyes. He wished having never turned to look at them.

“Uh, never me, my lord, I only ever lead songs.”

The two strangers chuckled generously, but not their eyes.

A procession of fodder carts were wheeled through the crowds and toward the queen, while true to the little woman’s threats soldiers who were wearing the masks of hangmen fidgeted with the trebuchets.

The prisoners had been brought out, stripped naked and bound by hands and feet, a mixed bag of men and women.

‘Naked they don’t look like outlaws.’ Garvin noted in his head. ‘Naked they look like us.’

And yet not, somehow. Nakedness meant shame and vulnerability, stripped away the armours of station, custom and norm.

At the other end of the field, perhaps a two hundred and some paces from Garvin, Queen Laura licked her giant lips hungrily.

“Does Honingen boast any capable engineers?” The Horasian Governor inquired. “How are they going to fling them into her mouth?”

The cruel woman shrugged: “Hit and miss, I suppose. They’ll get it right or they will substitute the sustenance with their flesh.”

She was right again.

The first prisoner, a tall, bronze-skinned woman with black hair, screamed and begged incoherently all the way from the group to the trebuchet. A stone thrower was a very simple contraption. A long wooden beam was attached to a counterweight, a mere wooden container filled with stones. On the other end was a sling with one end permanently attached to an iron ring and the other not so permanently to a release hook. At a certain point after the arm was released, the end on the hook would slip off, releasing the projectile in turn. Reloading could then be achieved either with ropes and manpower, or as in this case with sizeable winches.

The bottom formed a plane wooden platform for the projectile and the necessary scaffolding to rest upon. The projectile today was a living human being.

Somewhere Garvin had overheard that King Finnian had flung the King of Nostria against the walls of his own home castle the same way,  however only after removing the Nostrian King’s head, supposedly.

Upon a hand signal from Laura, the pin was struck from between two iron rings that fastened the throwing arm to the bottom of the platform. A mighty whoosh-sound was heard as the shrieking woman was catapulted to her intended destination. She was flying at an ill angle, though, low and short, her horrifying screech ending abruptly when her body smashed headlong into the acre, kicking up dirt and blood.

“Longer and higher,” Laura said, frowning. “Try again.”

A masked soldier on the other siege engine pried at the release hook with an iron bar. When it was done, he motioned for a prisoner.

The Governor was sceptical: “I cannot see how they are going to adjust for the different weight of each prisoner. Artillery is a complex series of sums, not unlike a good song. Any change will affect the grand outcome.”

Garvin wasn’t sure what sums had to do with singing, but even he could see that a fat man would not quite fly as far as a thin one, if that was what the Governor had meant.

“Just wait.” The little woman said mildly. “Laura is quicker than you know.”

“I don’t care what you will do to me!” A struggling young man screamed loudly on his way to the catapult. “We’re all dead anyway?”

The big, strong soldier carrying him gave him a violent punch: “Then stop bloody struggling!”

The prisoner calmed at that, a little. Garvin sensed that only then he realized what was happening to him, and that there was no way to stop it. By the time they sat him in the sling, one could hear him weeping.  

Whoosh.

He flew high and far, so far in fact that Garvin was sure they were overshooting. He came down slightly behind Laura’s head from a high arc, but the giantess leaned back, opened her mouth and caught him, the way a jolly fellow might indulge in grapes.

Garvin could see spittle glistening on her giant lips when her face came back into vision.

Her mouth moved a little before a tiny lump was seen, travelling down her throat, after which the Queen smacked her lips noisily: “Ah, yeah, much better. Try it a little bit shorter next time, and don’t keep me waiting.”

Someone, somewhere was crying. The horses whinnied nervously. No one said anything while their queen upended a wagon of cheese into her hungry mouth.  

The trebuchet crew started cheering first, then the whole of Honingen followed. It was as deafening as it was absurd, Garvin decided, because the people had to know in their hearts that few, if any, of these prisoners had committed crimes that warranted loss of life. Perhaps that was not at play here at all, however. Perhaps they were thinking: ‘Better them than me.’

It seemed in that moment as though the flame of riot had finally been snuffed out, as though Laura’s gargantuan arse had sat down upon it and quenched it, the moment she sat down at her place.

That was something even Garvin could cheer to.

-

Laura was enjoying herself again for once. It was perfect, even though she knew it could only last so long as Janna was sleeping. These people were all hers. She could kill them all if she wanted. But she didn’t want them to die, rather for them to cower before her. For this purpose, as well as her bloodlust, the prisoners served well.

She could see the fear on all of their faces even while they cheered her for having devoured one of them. She was in charge, unequivocally. Moreover, the food was nice this morning. It came with a lot of logistics, beasts of burden and whipping, but the fresh bread, the well ripened cheese and especially the crispy brown bacon were all fabulous.

It paled a little in comparison to eating people again. She could hardly wait for the trebuchets to be ready. But it was nice, very nice, a fun game of peace, quiet and murder before the day would invariably turn tedious. Janna was annoying enough on her own lately, as much as Laura still loved her, but politics was another matter.

This was the second reason why she was comporting herself so cruelly. She had to show the nobility sitting there on the wooden ranks either side of her what she was capable of, what she might do to them and theirs if they did not obey. Many of them would have heard about the things she had done already, but just in case they forgot, she would remind them again today. She needed them, was the sad truth of it. As quickly as she could go from place to place, she lacked the overview, the cunning, the wisdom, the experience and frankly the patience to micromanage every little bit of her kingdom.

“Next, we shall have a game of Imman, Your Grace!” The wrinkly old countess announced. “Aren’t you excited?”

There was a lot of suggestion in her voice.

Laura shook her head, making a decision: “We should not put the fun bits side by side, lest we will have to endure two tedious bits one after the other. We should commence with the trial, I think.”

She was a bit anxious about that and wanted to get it into motion while the judges would still be terrified. They knew the outcome she desired. She couldn’t risk them trying to claim a little victory by denying it to her.

In truth, however, Laura did not even know who the two other judges were. She simply hadn’t bothered, or it rather seemed to have slipped her mind.

The old lady replied, playfully stricken: “Well, I most humbly beg your pardon, Your Grace, I seem to have gotten entertainment and tedium confused. The trial then, very well. The trial!”

She called in a singsong voice and servants carried on the message. With breakneck speed, a small wooden stand and a podium for three were moved in bits onto the field and readily assembled.

Meanwhile, Laura was eating.

Turon Taladan sat by her right hand, left beside old lady Franka, the two of them looking like a funny old couple. Ardan and Devona were not there. Like as not, Ardan meant to participate in the jousting, and Laura could not figure out how such a thing could sit well with his grandmother.

The boy was her heir, the continuation of her line. She had a living daughter who was childless and already forty years old, living in Nordmarken where she had seemingly gotten stuck after her hippie-like attempts at peace-making. There was no new spawn to be expected from that end.

But then, Franka had another granddaughter, Ardan’s older sister through her deceased son Annlir Anneirin Galahan. The currently unmarried, twenty-two-year-old girl had been sent away when it became apparent that life in Albernia might become a little more perilous than usual. The old spinster had apparently hedged her bets.

That was before Laura had come, however, and it could not be held against her. As soon as Laura had found out, she had demanded the girl be brought back to Honingen. Thus far, though, nothing had happened to that effect.

Laura did not want to think about it, since there was much more than enough on her plate as it was. Maybe after today, she thought, if enough ground was covered.

“Throw me another one!” She urged when her belly demanded to be fed something living.

The sound those trebuchets made was funny, like a split second of doom. Another woman came soaring her way this time, tumbling, arms and legs stretched from her body, like a flying starfish, albeit much tinier of course. The flinging did not rob her morsels of consciousness, which had been a concern initially, when she had the idea.

That pleased her greatly. This one was already almost perfectly aimed too. It was all she had to do to move slightly to her right and open her mouth.

‘Easier than catching a peanut.’

The woman had yellow hair. That was all Laura knew of her ere she felt the taste of skin upon her tongue. She did not hold herself up with any inquiries but emptied a wagonload of bread and bacon respectively into her mouth ere she started chewing, squelching the struggling woman between her molars upon the third time she bit down.

It had to suck being so small and helpless.

The other nobles in the stands were largely unknown to Laura. Maybe she had seen this face or that, maybe she had killed some spouses, daughters, sons or parents of some of them, but there were so many that she couldn’t really place them. Wulfric ui Riunad had come, she saw. But he had left the stands as soon as she had started flinging people. She knew it couldn’t sit well with him. His friend was with him, the tall, slightly cadaverous guy, but she had forgotten his name too.

Ilaen Albenblood was there, originally with his entire family. He sat there alone now with a pained expression on his face, which could be on account of wound and fever or because of what he was observing. He had no choice anyway.

The other catapult was ready and Laura gestured, catching this flying morsel after having to lift slightly from her place. To her, they flew rather slow because they were more than a hundred meters away, which suited her.

Apparently though, the light-brown thing with black hair that flew her way somehow managed to bash its head on her canine, subsequently lying unresponsive on her tongue. She ate it anyway, squishing it against the roof of her mouth.

“Franka?” She decided to ask against better judgement. “Tell me, where is that granddaughter of yours?”

She made a point of swallowing the crushed morsel only then.

The old lady gave a withering smile: “Oh, why, Your Grace, I am afraid I do not know! I dispatched riders as you required of me, but I have not heard back from them. As a matter of fact, I believe Jasinai is in Nordmarken. We are at war with Nordmarken, are we not? Ah, there you are, that must be why my riders didn’t get through to her.”

‘Bitch.’ Laura thought, half angry and half smiling with admiration.

It was a rather cunning trick to abuse the fact that she had not yet told anybody about that horrible truce from two days before. No doubt, Ordhan Herlogan had told Franka all about it, sitting there at her shoulder, smiling pleasantly as he was. Also, Jasinai was probably not in Nordmarken anymore, if ever she had been there in the first place.

If Laura pressed the issue, she could expect to be put on the spot as to what had happened with that sizeable Nordmarkener host. Of course, she could take Ardan and Devona and threaten to kill them if Franka did not comply. That would be plump, however, not to mention stupid.

Garvin had gone away after that rebellious, ground-breaking song of his. Laura had rather hoped that he would stay. His scarred, one-eared wife Elia Talvinyr was sitting somewhat beside Ilaen Albenblood, sharpening her sword and looking anxious. That one wasn’t particularly fun to talk to.

But with Laura’s gaze falling upon her, she suddenly rose roaring: “Your Grace!”

Her voice was raw and somewhat ogrish, her demeanour violence given form. She swung her sword like a battle axe and rammed it into the planks, falling to one knee in the same motion.

Laura almost dropped her cart of cheese.

“Your Grace!” Elia Talvinyr bellowed. “I have sworn fealty and obedience to you as one of the first! It would be my greatest honour if you could grant me a small boon of your favour!”

Something told Laura that this was unorthodox, awkward, if not entirely unheard of. Some sounds of indignation proved her right.

“I am a woman!” The ridiculous lady knight went on. “But I can knock any of these men into the dust! Let me prove it to you! Grant me the right to ride in today’s tourney!”

Laura was a little uncomfortable, but also intrigued. It wasn’t any notion about woman’s liberation that motivated her, or any of those other things her professors had droned on about to no end. Rather, it was the fact that everyone here seemed to hate it. That was what could make it worth her while.

She made an ad-hoc decision: “Very well. Granted. But if you lose you must agree to appear before me in pink skirts, singing one of your husband’s outrageous songs.”

That way, Laura would even get something funny out of this, not to mention that everyone who hated her for it would subsequently love her. She had endeared them and showed them that she could do absolutely anything she wanted, with regards to their culture and traditions and such, all in the same stroke. It was brilliant, especially because there was no way in hell a woman could actually win this thing, not even a veritable battle cruiser such as this one.

Elia Talvinyr grit her teeth, nodded, and it was done.

Finally, the outdoor courtroom was complete, and Franka Salva Galahan announced that the judges should take their seats on the podium. This was a very important moment.

The strange twist dawned on Laura’s mind only belatedly.

“Franka?” She asked. “If I sit down on that thing, I’m going to flatten it, along with any of my co-judges. Why are there three chairs?”

“That is a very pertinent question!” The old lady replied, hands on her hips. “Why are there three chairs?! Where are my craftsmen, the men who built this thing?!”

Turon Taladan, tall, slender and not looking a bit as old as he supposedly was, stood up to tower over the countess.

“A simple oversight committed by simple men, Your Grace. I have no doubt there wasn’t any slight intended. Moreover, if I may offer, perhaps a blessing in disguise? It is ill-befitting for the accuser to sit in judgement herself, or at least that would be Your Grace’s enemies’ opinion.”

Laura bit her lip and thought about it for a moment: “You mean like Hakan did with the ill-fated whom he accused and had tortured? Why shouldn’t he face the same?”

She didn’t have the inquisitor tortured, which may have been a mistake.

At her words, Turon Taladan seemed to waver in his conviction, which was not entirely what she expected.

“Your Grace,” he said, licking his lips, “what would be the point of trying him for wrongs and then committing the self same wrongs ourselves? I pray you, let me sit in judgement in your stead. I can assure you, I would dispense justice just as Your Grace would do, to be sure.”  

Laura didn’t like it. She didn’t know if she was being played. On the other hand did Turon not speak a word about fairness or any such nonsense, and she had already trusted him before. He ruled half her kingdom for her, as things stood, and the decisively larger half at that.

“Fine.” She agreed reluctantly. “You shall sit in judgement in my stead. Who are the other two?”

The decision elicited some approval from the ranks of nobility. It remained unclear if that was because this was the right thing to do, which Laura sensed it wasn’t, or because it showed that she could be reasoned with.

It turned out that his reverence Ronwian of Naris, provost of the Honinger Praios temple, would sit in judgement to represent the church.  The judge for the county, Gurvan of Highrock, Laura had never even heard of until this point.

This filled her mind with a terrible uncertainty.

“Not to worry, Your Grace.” Countess Franka assured her. “Gurvan of Highrock has been the foremost justiciar of my court for many years, and he has never given me any reason to mistrust him.”

“My house is of Nordmarken, Your Grace.” The old man added after a courteous bow. “But rest assured that I am not, anymore.”

That did little to dampen Laura’s doubts, however.

Gurvan of Highrock’s garb was of a dark green, almost teal, with a bright-golden tower gate emblazoned on his doublet. Other than that were his hair grey and his eyes stern. That was all she knew.

He had to be in his fifties, judging by his looks, although that seemed to mean little in Albernia. Turon and Franka were both in their seventies and alive, which they statistically shouldn’t have been in medieval times.

The cleric Ronwian of Naris looked a tad younger on the hair, which was a dark yellow, but his skin was just as lined as an old man’s. His eyes were weird, very grey which made him look blind even though he wasn’t, and were horridly at odds with his bright white-golden robes.

When they brought Hakan, he looked younger and fuller of energy than any of them, even though he came from a dungeon cell. His skin was copper, his hair silver and his beard gold, which made for a startling mix. Like as not he had southern as well as Thorwalsh forebears, as his large, strong stature suggested as well. They had taken his mail and his sceptre but left him his black surcoat with the seeing eye.

They had fettered him too, Laura noted, as she had instructed them, back when she had had him seized. His wrists and ankles were chafed raw.

“Ah, the rush to judgement!” He proclaimed after appearing before her. “Go on! Kill me! Doom your soul and all these good, fine people with it!”

She extended her hand, cocked her index finger behind her thumb and dealt him a light, almost gentle flick to the head that sent him smashing to the ground.

‘But a pesky, little fly.’ She thought. ‘Perhaps I should just smash him for real.’

She was swinging a bit, like a pendulum, between observing the rules and breaking them in order to assert her power. It really depended on her mood, but if what she remembered from her history lessons was any good, that actually made her exactly like medieval nobility, who were big on the idea of a rules-based order when it suited them, and all but disregarded the concept when it did not.

“You are to speak, only when asked to.” She told him, sugary-sweet. “And before I kill you, you must stand trial.”

“For which the three of us shall sit in judgement.” Ronwian of Naris sternly grasped the word with a sharp look from his grey eyes.

It was a hint of what Laura had suspected from the beginning, namely that these two creatures of the Praios Church were in cahoots, like birds of a feather. She remembered Belisa Tibradan somewhat suggesting something similar at the time. It all came back to her now.

Then, she had still thought that she herself would sit in judgement, which would tie the vote at one to one, making the judge for the county the decisive one. There was little doubt that Gurvan of Highrock was Franka’s creature. This would suggest an outcome in Laura’s favour, if only Franka hadn’t been so bloody intransparent.

Hakan climbed groaningly back to his feet, spitting out a mouth full of blood.

“See what she is?!” He turned to the people at large. “How can you sit there like docile sheep when your faith is under-”

“You are to speak,” Ronwian of Naris raised his voice sharply, “only when spoken to!”

Hakan silenced at that and turned to the podium with the judges. Turon Taladan was sitting in the middle, his reverence Ronwian of Naris to his right. When the inquisitor’s eyes fell upon Gurvan of Highrock, however, a faint smile brushed across his lips, just for a moment.

It was enough for Laura to see that something was terribly wrong. She was about to open her mouth when Hakan spoke yet again.

“Gurvan of Highrock!” He greeted the man. “How nice to see you, and his reverence of the holy temple as well! Wasn it not a Highrock who held that honour as well, previously?”

The victorious smile he displayed made Laura sick to the stomach. She turned to Franka Galahan in rage.

“What game are you playing with me?!” She hissed, loudly even though it was meant to be a whisper.

Everyone could hear, but no one said anything. The only one she could see moving happened to be Dari, the reason for this trial, slipping into the stands to observe the demise of her torturer from up close.

Their eyes met. It was a terribly painful moment. Laura couldn’t let this victory be taken away from her, let vengeance be taken from Dari.

“Distant relatives, nothing more.” The countess waved off, mumbling. “Nothing to fear, Your Grace.”

It was seeming that all reassurances were doomed to failure and, worse yet, Hakan Praiford had taken note of the exchange.

“Aha!” He roared victoriously. “I knew there was no justice to be expected here! This court is rigged with strings and there towers the puppeteer!”

He pointed his finger accusingly at Laura.

“Well then!” He swelled his chest like a rooster, going on. “I shall confess!”

Honingen had three thousand inhabitants, give or take, and was housing many refugees at this time too, plus the nobility and their entourage. The sound of all of them gasping at once was quite something.

Laura had almost been about to smash Hakan Praiford into a pulp, along the two spearmen leading him. Now she moved away from that idea suspiciously. Part of her was screaming that this was a farce, but since she had already committed to the trial it would be nothing short of a concession if she harmed him now, before the verdict.

She was walking a tightrope.

“Well,” Turon Taladan smiled and folded his long, bony hands before him, “You stand accused of disobeying a direct order from the queen! In defiance of her decree you have tortured most grievously an innocent woman, accusing her of being a witch! Despite having no proof, and you having no authority to do so at the time, you abducted her from the streets of this good city to play sick, perverted games with her for your amusement!”

‘Wow, he’s good.’ A load lifted off Laura’s mind.

The Steward of Bredenhag made it sound as though they were dealing with the worst possible kind of man, even while that man had essentially already declared himself guilty. Hakan had pressed ahead too far and exposed himself.

“If you are guilty of these charges, then we shall now hear your confession.”  

“I am guilty!” The inquisitor rattled his chains noisily after making a broad-legged stand, blood and froth bubbling from his mouth as he did so. “Guilty of trying to protect this good city from the confessed evils of witchcraft! You have all seen these evils at work with your own eyes! The graveyards have been desecrated, the dead are slaying the living, what more does it take to make you believe me?!”

The bushy salt and pepper moustache on Turon’s lip quivered, only for a moment. It was unfortunate that the rebuttal had been so good, but when all was said and done they were just words, whereas Laura was ninety meters tall and so heavy that everyone she trod on burst like a grape beneath her.

The silence that followed was so absolute that when the steward spoke, he needed not even to raise his voice a whole lot.

“You confess.” He said gravely. “With your own mouth, you condemn yourself. I believe I speak in concordance with all here when I say-”

“I wasn’t finished!” Hakan Praiford’s voice sounded evil and hateful. “I know how little justice I can expect from this queen! Therefore, I render my fate to the Twelve! I demand trial by battle! This is my right!”

Everyone seemed to shout over one another at once. Some people were cheering, but at least they were definitely in the minority. The whole trial was getting out of hand very quickly, and when Laura looked down she found an expression of terror on Dari’s pretty face.

A trial by battle, as Gurvan of Highrock explained to Laura after the commotion had died away, was a judgement of the gods. The accused faced his accuser in armed combat to the death. If the gods blessed him, meaning he won, he could expect to walk away unmolested. There were loads of strings attached to this, but that was basically what it meant.

“You mean he can just kill a guy and walk away?!” Laura gasped. “How is this justice?”

“Good question.” Someone mumbled somewhere, or perhaps it was just a voice in Laura’s head.

“In actuality,” Turon Taladan intervened, “in cases of murder the judicial duel can be denied, as is the case when there is insurmountable evidence. Whether this is given is for us, the judges, to decide.” He gave her a sly, fatherly smile that suggested everything would be alright. “But in this case, I think, we can move forward with the duel. What say you, my co-judges?”

Ronwian of Naris screwed up his nose and turned away, saying nothing. Gurvan of Highrock pressed his lips together and gave a nod.

Laura did not understand: “But why? He did it, there is insurmountable evidence, he is guilty, plus he has already confessed!”

“I shall have my sceptre and my mail!” Hakan Praiford glowered at her, smiling. “Now, will I face the witch or can she marshal some champion?”

This was exactly what Laura had been afraid of.

“I will kill you, you sack of rotten filth!” Dari screamed from the stands, her voice cutting through the re-emerging tumult.

Heads were turning toward her, taking in her appearance. Laura worried some people might still think her some kind of menace.

Turon Taladan launched to his feet, spreading his arms, now addressing the crowd and Hakan Praiford conjoinedly: “The woman you wronged does not accuse you, and it is uncustomary for female folk to partake in this thing! This is not a marital dispute.”

He smiled superiorly and laughter followed.

Then he went on: “The Queen is the one who accuses you! Now, she, I hope none here dare deny, is of the gentler sex too. However, there is precedent for a ruling queen to stand in such a duel! Whether she wishes to face you herself, or name a champion, is for her to decide!”

Laura sat there, mesmerized at the poetic justice. After all the talking, she would get to squelch him like a bug and in the same instant prove that he was guilty. She looked down on the tiny inquisitor who, for once, seemed to be lost for words.

The rest was hastened along for time constraints, the chosen battle ground being the Imman field which was next to the tourney grounds in the middle between the two bleachers, Laura’s seat and the tents.

Hakan was only given time for one last prayer which Laura made as difficult as possible by having two more prisoners flung her way, two men this time, which she caught both alive in her mouth and chewed noisily together.

The Imman field was a hundred and forty steps long and eighty steps wide, whereby one step very closely represented one metre. Mud squelched under Laura’s feet as she approached her foe who stood there clad in mail and with his stupid, little sceptre in his hand, forlorn on the big field that wasn’t even as wide as Laura was tall.

The sceptre was the shape of the sun, just like the Chosen One’s had been, but it was clear that this man could not shoot rays of holy light from it.

The audience of thousands was as silent as a grave. It was a tad awkward, because Laura did not know when to begin. Finally, one trumpeter had mercy and blew a fanfare. Then Hakan Praiford looked up at her.

He did neither beg nor plead. Laura didn’t move at first because she was unsure what to do with him. She could do a million things, but as a message to everyone around it was probably prudent to keep this simple. Rather than tearing him limb from limb she sensed that simply stepping on him would hurt him more too, in his pride, where it mattered.

The thought of saying something crossed her mind, but she was too transfixed on this kill, wanting to savour it for herself.

So, she simply lowered her foot on him, waiting only a moment to savour the feel of his body trapped against the ground. She could register some beating against the bottom of her sole and smiled. Then she let her weight settle for a wonderful second.

It were a sigh of relief, and a gasp, that came at once from her lips.

-

 “Janna, please, no!”

Their voices were squeaks like that of mice. Their tiny feet scuttled over the forest floor. There were eight of them, but there had been eighteen when Janna had started. The others were flat corpses in the imprints of her boots.

Christina and Steve were among them. They were the real prize.

‘No.’ She thought. ‘Steve is the real prize.’

Her lips curled into a smile when she felt another tiny runner compact under her weight. She chuckled. Her huge, uncaring feet pounded through the woods as though the trees were made of cotton.

“Steve, come to mama.” She grinned down at them. “Let me play with you for a while, my strong, little boy.”

He was wearing his standard-issue explorer’s suit, but somehow tighter so that she could see how well muscled he was. He was a sweet piece of sugar and she wanted him with every fibre of her body. She wanted him in her, feel him with her most sensitive parts. The others, including Christina, were nothing more than foreplay.

Janna had enough of it. She trod two more of them flat while overtaking her prey, cutting off their path. They were out of breath at this point anyway, panting like tired dogs in the summer.

She towered over them: “Steve, why do you run from me? You know seeing tiny people run from me makes me horny, don’t you? Or was this your plan all along?”

“Don’t hurt them!” Steve begged in response. “Please, Janna, you can do with me what you want but you must stop hurting them, please!”

“Aw, but you made mommy horny, honey.” She cooed. “You know mommy squashes people when she gets horny.”

The locals huddled together for protection. That only made the job easier for her. She moved her sole over them in one quick motion, then lowered it down on them and didn’t stop until she could feel them break.

Christina started howling.

It stopped suddenly when Janna’s gore-dripping sole hovered over her in turn.

“Please don’t do this.” She said with a horror-stricken voice.

Then Janna stepped down.

“Mh, just us two now, Stevie boy.” She said as she lowered herself to the ground, already plucking at her jeans button.

A moment later, somehow, she was already undressed, and Steve’s naked, muscular body was running up and down her labia, propelled by her sticky fingers.

She could hear herself moaning when she opened her eyes to a familiar pain in her stomach, and the scents of earth, grass and sleeping bag in her nose.

“What the fuck.” She sighed, rubbing her face and thinking of her dream.

She oft dreamed of Steve, but she had never called herself ‘mommy’ in one before. She was sleeping too much, she knew. Sometimes, dreams came to her at night, but those were fairly normal. It was when she slept during the day that the weird dreams came, the ones that felt real even though they were utterly absurd. And they were the ones that frightened her.

Laura had gotten up already, she saw. That was probably good in case Janna had said something in her sleep. A touch between her legs revealed that she was as wet as a waterfall, which was unnerving, given that she had sworn off killing tiny people for her arousal.

It had been time to stop. She had become too evil. It was another dream that had proven it to her, the one in which she had been a girl called Bessa. Her heart bled when she thought about how many people she had crushed and eaten, and so many innocent animals too. She still killed a lot of animals just by walking, she guessed, but she couldn’t really do anything about that. Any little fox, rabbit, rodent or bird hiding in their respective places would inevitably be squished or buried alive when she stepped on or near them.

For this reason, she had resolved to avoid walking in the forest.

Her loins demanded stimulation, but she refused to give it to them. She couldn’t give in.

This was Laura’s big day, she recalled, the day she was supposed to hold court, whatever that meant. Janna was just glad she had prevented Laura from murdering the tens of thousands of Nordmarkers, who had been camping in the snow next to that village. That was her greatest victory yet. If truth be told, it shouldn’t be her last victory either. Laura was mean and negligent, and without Janna’s moderation she would surely erect some dystopian reign of terror here in Albernia.

But the situation was complicated, and now apparently even involved zombies. Killing was hard to avoid.

She realized that she would have to get up to get food and see that Laura wasn’t making any mischief. One man had to die today. Hakan Praiford, that was it. Regrettably, her illness prevented Janna from keeping close track of all the goings on.

“B-b-big lady!” A voice in a strange accent called to her from a distance. “Y-y-you n-need anything?”

She bit her lip, trying to ignore her pussy that quivered with anticipation for whomever this young voice belonged to. She forced herself upright, ignoring the pain in her stomach as well.

The speaker was a young serving man of colour, one of Franka Salva Galahan’s. He stood there with his back tilted forward and his neck stretched out, as though he tried to be as far away from her with the rest of his body as he could.

He wasn’t particularly tall, Janna saw, but slim and somewhere between sixteen and twenty years old, sporting a brush of stubbly, black fuss for hair. It should have interested her where he came from, but it really didn’t. Somehow, that made her feel as though she was failing in some duty.

She forced herself to smile which terrified the black youth into swallowing.

“No, not at this time, thank you so much, little man.” She began as amiably as she could. “I would like to ask you a question, however. Where do you come from?”

‘Shit.’ She thought, as soon as the words had left her mouth.

It sounded terrible, like he didn’t belong here, which wasn’t what she meant to imply at all.

“I don’t mean it that way!” She shouted hastily ere he could reply. “I meant only…um…your heritage! Where your…where your…I mean…how…”

There was no good way of asking it, she realized, stricken.

The young servant chewed his large lower lip for a moment, seemingly unsure what to say.

Then he replied: “I, uh, come off a ship, big lady!”

Janna nodded, fighting the thought of what the little black guy would feel like if she put him in, down below. Then she realized what he had said.

“A ship?” She asked. “I am so sorry, that’s not what I meant. I meant…your…people. Is there a place, maybe, where you were once, and then evil men took you away?”

That seemed to confuse him only more.

“Evil men?” He asked. “I…I wouldn’t know. I only knows the ship which were a big chunk of wood, like a hollow log. Sometimes me and the others we had to go pull a rod and get sweaty, and you had to pull real hard or you’d get the whip! I like it here better now. The old lady, she never whips anyone and her knights only do it when we spill wine, and I never spill no wine ‘cause of my hands aren't shaking.”

An awkward, shy smile spread across his poor, little face, pearly white and pristine. Janna’s crotch was twitching.

She swallowed hard: “That’s still terrible! No one should ever whip anybody. If I were to guess that you are not free, and I don’t mean to insult you, really…but would I be right?”

“Free?” His smile faded. “Like when the lady says she don’t need us no more and we can go play dice in the kitchens?”

‘One step at a time.’ She thought to calm herself.

She couldn’t rectify all the evils of the world at once, and this young man’s mind had been broken so thoroughly that he wasn’t the right one to talk to. Franka Salva Galahan was, but Janna would have to make sure not to forget about all the other things that so desperately needed progress. Real allies who would fight for lasting progress along side her, that would be convenient to have. But so far, everyone with whom she and Laura had joined had somehow proven evil. Janna was very much alone so far, and had little reason to get her hopes up in this pre-enlightenment world.

“You can go.” She told the black servant with another smile. “And thank you.”

He all but sprinted back to the entrance of Galahan Palace, no doubt glad to have survived the encounter. Such was Janna’s curse.

Before seeing the light, she might have grabbed him and gotten herself off with him, discarding him afterwards like a used tampon. His fear was justified.

By Laura’s sleeping bag lay the stone dildo, probably retrieved on the day before. But she wanted no piece of that either. Her pussy would have to learn to shut up.

That morning, when she had gotten up to pee, she had seen the rough equivalent of a medieval soccer stadium over by the castle walls. There was a lot of faint noise coming from there now. She knew she should go there.

She didn’t want to, really. Trying to tame Laura was exhausting work.

Smoke drifting out of an open window gave her an excuse to postpone it.

“Furio?” She asked after crawling over without leaving the comfortable warmth of her sleeping bag. “Furio, is that you?”

She had asked it directly at the building, feeling stupid when no answer came. There was practically no seeing through these medieval windows, because they had been cast from many small, thick, individual blocks of glass. Large, clear panes, obviously, were too hard to make in lack of the respective technology.

But then, his head emerged, his long white-brown hair and somewhat scraggly beard, along with his hand, waving the smoke away.

“Janna?”

His speech was thick on account of the pipe in his mouth, steaming dense, white trails, more than usual.

“Do you feel any better?” He asked her.

She shook her head. It was truly annoying. Sometimes, especially after eating, she could taste blood in her mouth, which couldn’t be a very good sign.

It wasn’t as bad as it had been in Nostria, but from a certain point there appeared to be no more improvement, as though the infection had somehow become chronic. If that was truly the case, then she was in trouble. It didn’t bare thinking about.

“I told you, you should stop smoking that damn thing.” She admonished him instead with a hint at his pipe. “It will kill you, Furio.”

Amazingly, a look of defiance played around his eyes. There was something weird about his eyes anyway, looking red and glassy somehow, as though he had been crying. And the smoke from his pipe was thicker than usual, as well as smelling odd.

“Furio,” she gave him a sharp look, “what are you smoking?”

He flushed and his beard moved a bit ere he replied: “Oh, um, I have acquired new pipe weed, meant for Tulamidian water pipes, uh, very wet. Not comparable to Stoerrebrandt’s, but the best I have. Uh, Dari gave it to me yesterday, she took it from a brothel.”

He spoke like a waterfall, no doubt in hopes of muddying up some truth he didn’t want to share. That was his prerogative but Janna didn’t fail to notice that Dari had again done something she disapproved of.

That girl was nothing if not trouble. As soon as a chance presented itself, Janna would kill her. A skilled assassin in Laura’s hands had the potential to cause a lot of mischief, up to and including the starting of wars.

Janna couldn’t let it stand. She should have crushed or eaten Dari when they found her in the snow, but she had been too afraid of liking it and relapsing. So she had tossed her, which had failed and almost started a physical altercation with Laura.

There was no police here. It didn’t bear thinking about it what might have happened if they physically fought each other.

“And why are your eyes so red?” She asked to take her mind off it. “Why are you not with Laura anyway, it sounds like half the city is there.”

“Aha!” He puffed. “Two questions with the same answer! I have been reading!”

“So, so.” She gave a smile. “Reading. And what have you been reading, if I may inquire?”

It struck her that it was good for Furio to be here. The endless travelling had not seemed to go very good on his health, mentally and physically.

“Oh, books, dark and darker!” He replied ominously. “Of black wizardry I have read, and of demons.”

“And why did you do that?” She asked the logical question.

He puffed and exhaled through his nose: “To learn of our foe!”

She waited anxiously, raising her brows and looking at him suggestively, but nothing came. The wads of smoke rising from the head of his pipe had transfixed his attention.

“Furio, are you high?” She asked in annoyance.

Of course, it was the wrong bloody expression.

“High?” He echoed. “No, I am down here!”

Ever since her affliction had proved to be prolonging, her patience had been running perilously short. She had the urge to punch a hole into Galahan palace but resorted to grind her teeth instead.

“What foe do you speak of?”

He seemed confused: “What foe? Oh, uh yes! Why, the black sorcerer, of course! He came to me on the day that the dead rose in Honingen!”

This was very important news. It vexed Janna even more that no one had told her earlier. She had not dreamt of the dark wizard again, but she had not forgotten.

“Well,” she demanded, “what did he want?!”

That seemed to frighten him for some reason: “Oh, he...I couldn’t really say, Janna. It seemed all the spawn of evil and madness to me. I am afraid, however, that we have not seen the last of him.”

“That doesn’t make any sense. How can you not know what he’s about but know he’s bound to be back at the same time?”

For a moment, she felt clever for having noticed this, before realizing that she had missed the much bigger thing, multiple things, in fact.

“Wait, did you fight with him?! Did he make those zombies?!”

Laura had showed her one by wordlessly dropping it into Janna’s hand. She had first mistaken it for a grievously injured woman. The creature had no bowels anymore, its belly a huge, bloody cleft, but that hadn’t stopped it from starting to scratch and gnaw at Janna’s palm. To really drive it home, Laura had then reached over and popped the woman’s head between her fingers like a minuscule watermelon.

Janna had been shocked, good and proper.

“He raised the dead, yes.” Furio admitted reluctantly. “It was them I fought. By the time he revealed himself to me, my powers were depleted. He then used a Transversalis spell to escape.”

“It’s alright.” She consoled him. “You couldn’t have known.”

She felt the urge to pet him, like a sad puppy dog, her anger ebbing away as soon as it had come. She was prone to mood swings.

“I hope I’m there when he comes back.” She added when he did not say anything. “Give me half a chance and he’ll be porridge.”

“Porridge.” He echoed her again, chewing on his pipe.

“Furio,” She went on carefully, fearing to overbear his troubled mind, “I’m so sorry, but I have to ask this. Why didn’t he kill you?”

“Mhh.” He shook his head after some time of consideration. “There is no such thing as reason in a black sorcerer’s mind. Trying to make sense of his actions is a perilous venture, one like to make us as mad as him.”

It might have been an overhastened dismissal born from prejudice and lack of knowledge, but challenge it, Janna could not.

“What are we going to do about him then?” She asked. “Were your books of any help in that regard?”

“So far I know only that he must be mighty.” Furio replied gravely. “The demon he summoned and enslaved was a nine-horned servant of Thargunitoth, one of the most accomplished acts of necromancy I have ever seen. Supposedly, that demon is the mightiest of all her servants and with enough corpses can be used to create a Never-ending War Worm. It is called the Nirraven, or Bone Raven, and to give it form, commonly a dead raven is used. I believe in this instance the summoner transformed the dead bird into something that men would mistake for…for something they might pick up and, uh, carry around with themselves.”

His weird explanation was at a sudden end. Perhaps he realized that she had not understood a word of what he said. When she asked him for simplification he gave a rough treatise on how the twelve archdemons of the Netherhells were each a counterplayer to the twelve gods, an inverse mirror of their virtue. Thargunitoth, as the counterpart to Boron, was female and responsible for necromanc, insomnia and nightmares. Next to the archdemons there were lesser demons that could be summoned into the world to make evil, and the more horns a demon had, the eviller it was, and the harder to control for the summoner.

If truth be told, Janna was listening with growing scepticism. It was confusing to her, given how she had learned that all the gods already had negative aspects of their own. That day when she had a shouting altercation with the provost of the local Praios temple she had made the mistake of appealing to pure goodness.

‘Does not Praios love all people, though?’ She had asked at the time.

Being steeped in monotheism had gotten her carried away, even though she would not call herself a believer.

‘He certainly does not!’ The provost had replied, startling her.

“And the never-ending war worm?” She asked Furio. “What is that exactly, some sort of dragon?”

He shook his head, leaning back in his window seat: “The Never-ending War Worm is so named for the sight of a column of marching, undead soldiers, stretching to the horizon and beyond. Like a worm, you see? It is never ending because the presence of so much necromantic magic causes any living foe they slay to rise again and join them.”

That was a pretty scary thought, but only if one forgot Janna’s size. The zombie on her hand had not been able to hurt her in any way whatsoever. After Laura squished its head, she dropped it, which shattered most of its bones. Still it tried to move and hurt her. That ended only when Laura set her foot on it and ground it out of existence. This in turn wasn’t any harder than crushing a regular person.

“If we ever encounter something like that, let me know.” She said confidently. “Let me take a walk on it. Then we’ll see if it never ends. If that’s the biggest thing our enemy can do then it should be cause for celebration.”

He had laughed mildly at her description of what to do with that War Worm, but he was cautioning her now.

“Do not underestimate him by virtue of overestimating yourself.” He warned. “Your mind is your primary vulnerability, and the mob hanged the man who might have been of use in mitigating this weakness.”

She had nothing clever to reply to that, and even though she had learned a whole host of things that would no doubt haunt her somehow in her weird dreams were they no closer to any answer of the original question.

Furio went on after a moment: “The sorcerer said he needed the demon for something, so it might be that we have need of your stomping feet. That is a good thing, but never cause for levity. Pray, forgive me, I must retire, I have work to do.”

He suddenly rushed away from the window and vanished in his room, there where Janna could not follow.

She wondered what it was like, inside. Probably quite nice. Having to be outside all day everyday was a psychological strain in and of itself. Judging from the chimneys on the roof of Galahan Palace, at least one hearth was burning. Furio could have baths when he wanted to, even though judging by the look of him this wasn’t particularly often the case.

Janna knew she would, though, if she could. There was little she wanted more, except perhaps for some antibiotics and pain killers.

Winter meant that bathing in the river was associated with a lot of discomfort. It wasn’t painfully cold, and at their size she and Laura faced little risk of hypothermia, but it wasn’t exactly pleasant either.

During the course of her illness, Janna had let her standard of grooming slide.

It didn’t help anything, she decided and ventured to pull on her jeans. She stored them inside her sleeping bag so they wouldn’t get wet, cold and all too dirty, but the accumulated use without washing meant that they were still uncomfortable to wear. Her bra, which she took off for sleeping, as always, amazingly was not an issue. Once she had it on and adjusted her breasts, however, she wondered why she was even bothering with it.

‘Perhaps I should try to get drunk.’ She thought.

That would invariably mean that she would have to sleep again, however, and dream all those weird things again too.

When she stood up with intent of going to where Laura was to get some food and wine into her belly, she saw a landscape that was almost free of snow again. That blizzard had been a freak occurrence, but the same sometimes happened on Earth as well, especially at the beginning of winter.

She remembered when she was little and rejoiced at the prospect of a white Christmas, even though it was but early November or something, only to dissolve in tears when all the beautiful snow turned to mud on the next day. This might be no different.

‘White snow.’ She thought. ‘White, white, white, white, white.’

That poor black guy. He must have felt terribly estranged so far north, not to mention that his master was probably a racist who treated him horribly. Janna hadn’t even asked his name. She hadn’t really asked whether or not he was being paid either. Definitely not, she decided. If Franka Salva Galahan was any way like she seemed, she was pulling that ‘paid in room and board’ bull-crap, the oldest trick in the book of the exploiters.

Perhaps Janna should accidentally flatten the old woman. Ardan seemed like a good boy, someone who might be a little more progressive.

‘One step at a time.’ She thought again.

The thing was, there was probably nothing wrong with it if she had some fun with evil people. If she was going to squelch Dari anyway, who was to judge her if she got herself off with her first? One step at a time could mean that each time she stepped down there could be a racist, a rapist or some sexist underneath her foot. She could use her gigantic powers to do good. She had already started doing it, if truth be told. But maybe she should step up her game. If only Laura wasn’t there to stall her, as well as the bug in her gut.

That would give her something to do until that strange black sorcerer showed up again.

-

Being with the ogres was more terrifying than Linbirg had imagined. The huge women loved her, to be sure, and always smiled and beamed when looking at her. Of the men, however, they seemed to swing between suspicion and something eerily darker, reminding her of the way a cook might look at a chicken, or something like that. Similarly, the men were suspicious of the ogres, or looked at them the way a chicken might look at the cook when he came with the cleaver.

During a brief rest in the hills, she had taken measure. One ogress had laid herself down upon a bed of moss to stretch her legs and Linbirg had walked beside her to learn her height. Eleven paces and a little more. If it came to blows after all, it would be an uneven fight.

Perhaps further exacerbated was the discontent between the two groups by the fact that only one of the ogresses spoke Garethi, the common tongue. She was called Mara and was the one whom they had encountered first. She was very willing to act as a bridge between her and Linbirg’s people but was only one among three giant dozen. Together, they were the Children of Marag. Their names were Maragash, Marg, Marax and the such like, too many and too similar not to be confused. Mara was the foremost among them. Strangely enough, not one of them was called Marag.

“One of your ancestors must have subdued them.” Haldan of Ashspring had suggested at one point during the march. “Likely at a time when none but one man was clad in iron or steel armour at Lionstone.”

That did not answer why they had suddenly appeared, however. And they were not the only ones.

“Dragon!” One of the levy men had shouted and pointed towards the sky.

The flying, wondrous, horrifying creature had turned its long, slender neck to look at them, flying by high above towards the Windhag, the enormous mountain range to the south of Albernia. Arguably, the Bordermark was made up of foothills of the Windhag and stories about the Westwind Dragons were known by every child. It was common for young boys to dream of becoming a knight and brave the impossibly tall mountains to rescue some maiden from a dragon’s clutches, just like in those stories. A reliable report of sighting such a creature was not known in modern memory, however, as judged by Linbirg’s late father anyway.

The dragon soon straightened its neck and moved on, never again paying them any heed. Linbirg was almost a little disappointed. Not that she wanted to be close to a dragon. But to see such wonder from so far away only to have it disappear into the clouds was somewhat dissatisfying. She had seen with her own eyes a being that her father had deemed only a myth, an ancient story, yet the entire affair was little more overall than seeing a rare kind of eagle.

Her feelings about it changed only when she saw Mara’s face, teeth gritted and eyes hatefully staring upward, much as though she was used to fearing dragons or having to fight them.

“Beware the fire-breathing lizard, Ironman.” Mara said without looking. “They snatch little humans from the ground and steal them, little female ones like you who have known no male by lying with him.”

Linbirg had felt a cold and her voice quivered: “How do you know this?”

Mara had looked down and cocked her head, and only then did Linbirg notice that the ogress was carrying a hilltribe girl with pale, flaxen hair in her hand.

“Because they only steal humans like this one.” She raised the girl up. “Only the ones that taste best.”

The girl screamed when Mara’s mouth suddenly opened, a pink, watering cave with huge, white teeth in it and a thread of spit stretching between the tongue and the roof. Linbirg had screamed as well, apparently, because suddenly it was all pandemonium. To shut the girl up, Mara shoved her headfirst into her mouth and bit down just past the little breasts. Her jaw moved up mercilessly and her teeth sunk into the girl’s body like an unstoppable force. It only took one moment and everything was full of blood. It ran from Mara’s hand, the corners of her mouth and down her chin, drenching the furs she wore.

Two severed human hands with pieces of forearm fell onto the mossy rocks below.

Agylwart Mardhûr of Grindelmoor, Haldan of Ashspring, knights and levies, they all came in arms, shouting and screaming. Mara did not understand, interrupting her horrible chewing for a moment to scowl at them.

“It’s fine!” Linbirg had to tell them with a voice that shook more than it ever had in her life. “She is eating! That is all!”

It turned out to be the chief reason why they carried the captive hilltribes people with them and it explained the look they gave Linbirg’s people sometimes. To them, people were food. Except for the severed arms on the ground, Mara ate the girl head to heel, bite after powerful bite, saving only a long piece of bone with which she picked her teeth afterwards while Linbirg looked on.

Mara studied her: “You do not like to watch me eat your kind, Ironman. Then why do you watch?”

It was a decent question, one that was playing out in Linbirg’s mind as well. If she was to use these creatures against Firmin ui Lôic, she had determined, then she had to understand what that meant. She was fine with that. Also, there was a strange, terrifying appeal to the display, the power of making an entire human being disappear with barely the effort it took to devour a quail. Firmin ui Lôic could be made to disappear that way, perhaps. And everyone who chose him over Linbirg.

She ignored the question.

“Tell me, Mara,” she asked instead, “did you send someone to summon me to you? Did you wish to treat with me?”

Mara took the bony toothpick from her mouth and inclined her head dutifully, her brown mane swinging softly in the cold, northern breeze. The response conflicted Linbirg. Perhaps the steward had not betrayed her after all. But giving her just the few levies as protection seemed to suggest just that. Perhaps he had grasped the opportunity once it presented itself. She would find out when they reached Lionstone.

Until then, however, it would be a long and arduous journey with much to keep her busy along the way. The ogresses wore furs and raw hides, mostly of sheep and goats and a few rarer things in between. These were layered and stitched or bound together like thread as single furs were simply insufficient. A few wore larger pieces of some beast that had to have been three paces tall at the shoulders and possessed long, brown fur. But even with that, they did not have enough clothing on them to provide any sort of decency. And the humans were walking right beside them, or rather more under them at that, presenting the men with much a view too many of the ogre females’ giant privy parts.

“And what would you be looking at, soldier?!” Grey, grizzled Agylwart reprimanded a spearman. “Think a foe might sprout from betwixt that beast’s legs? Eyes on the road, or I’ll cut them out for you!”

The beast in question was not Mara, but if Linbirg had learned her name she had forgotten it. The ogress did not speak Garethi but must have understood all the same. She hissed and reached down as if to cover herself, only to lift her loincloth upward and look threateningly at the soldier who thankfully already kept his eyes elsewhere. Agylwart craned his neck, however. He took a long, hard look at the ogress’ privy parts and gave a black bark of laughter that made the huge woman’s aggression turn into fear.

It was the end of that incident, but not the last.

Soon after, another ogress came to Linbirg with a worried expression on her face and started mumbling something. Her mouth and chin were smeared with blood just like Mara’s had been when she ate the tribeswoman. Mara herself had gone to speak with a few others further behind and joined them just as a furious knight came from the front of the column, the same direction as the first ogress.

“She ate my horse!” He shouted angrily, then looked as though there was more he wanted to say but did not quite dare.

The ogress, a younger one with a fleshy appearance and huge, innocent blue eyes, pressed her lips together. Linbirg noted something odd about her hair when she looked up. It was the same brown as they all had, more or less wavy, not as fuzzy as Mara’s, but this one had hers bound to a knot and fixed with a huge white pin of something that might have been ivory.

Haldan of Ashspring was close by, inquiring: “Where did this happen?”

The story was another example of how difficult it was for ogres and human beings to coexist in such proximity. The knight had ridden ahead to squat down and heed a nature call in some bushes. Meanwhile, the ogresses were walking mostly outside the column because the path was not wide enough for them and their long legs carried them easily over the rocky hills.

“She found the horse and took it for a wild one.” Mara translated after the ogress explained her version of the story. “She did not see the man and she was hungry.”

The knight was impotently furious: “A wild one, eh?! And what wild horses come with saddles, pray tell me, and also since when do we have wild horses in the Bordermark!”

“It was a stupid horse!” Agylwart who had watched from atop his own steed snarled. “Now, if walking is too much to ask, mayhaps she could be persuaded to carry you like a squalling babe. Just pray she doesn’t get hungry again!”

Fatally, Mara missed the jape and found the idea fantastic. She said a few words to the other ogress who then proceeded to bend down in an attempt to pick up the disgruntled knight, who in turn misinterpreted the gesture as an attack.

He drew his sword in one vile swing, missing the huge fingers coming for him only by a hair’s breadth. The young ogress shrieked and recoiled, stumbling backwards in her haste. Behind her was another knight, listening to the conversation from his saddle. Her heel ploughed into him, knocking his brown mare over like a little toy before coming down upon his leg and the horse’s belly with all her weight behind it.

The mare gave a terrifying scream. Then the belly burst open, spraying all around with blood, including Linbirg. Other horses shied. Linbirg’s almost threw her. And the knight was howling in pain, one leg crushed under his horse and the other under the ogress. Linbirg felt bread and hard cheese beat a retreat from her tummy, but it wasn’t yet where the horror stopped.

The ogress was off balance and her foot started sliding on its heel, the ruined horse acting like a rotten apple on a cobbled street. She fell over backwards, and the last thing Linbirg could see come towards her was the sole of the ogress, grinding the horse to red mush under it.

‘Oof!’

When she opened her eyes, they were all standing around her, men’s faces framing the field of her vision and ogresses’ the rest.

“Isenmann.” An ogress whispered.

“My lady.” Sir Haldan breathed.

Her horse had rolled over her and broken a leg. They had already relieved it of its misery. The knight whose horse had been eaten had cursed them all to the Netherhells and abandoned the cause, and a couple of levies had deserted. The other knight had one of his legs broken in multiple places and lost the other, although thankfully they were able to stop the bleeding.

By comparison, Linbirg had only suffered a few bruises and a cut above her brow that wasn’t deep but hurt abominably.

“We have already caught the deserters,” Agylwart told her when she could walk again, pointing her to where they were lined up on the ground, “all except Lancemyr, that honourless swine.”

An ogress was watching over the six deserters, ready to step on anyone who dared to move.

Linbirg weighed her options before deciding: “Let them go. This is as difficult for them as it is for me. I do not blame them.”

But Agylwart shook his head: “If you show mercy to them, they will run again. If you let them go, more will run. Desertion means hanging. Trouble is, we only have one rope. I was thinking one of the ogres could do it. Quick, but make the others watch.”

“Where is Mara?” Linbirg asked.

She couldn’t see her anywhere.

Agylwart replied: “She and a couple others are hunting Sir Lancemyr. We cannot risk him getting to Lionstone before us and warning them. They should’ve been back by now, but Lance has always been an elusive bastard, especially on foot.”

“Then crush these and let us be going.” Linbirg urged. “But I do not want them to suffer any more than they deserve.”

Agylwart looked up at the ogress and gave a nod, upon which the huge woman acted like Mara must have instructed her, getting into position at the end of the line of men. They were on their backs, eying her fearfully. Agylwart waved everyone else closer.

Again, the ease of it was stunning. The ogress did not even seem to mind her grim duty, smiling down at the men rather more as though she enjoyed the prospect.

One of the damned turned his head to Linbirg: “Milady, please, mercy! I’ll never run again, just have mercy, please!”

“Shut up!” Agylwart barked, motioning the ogress to begin trampling.

The gigantic woman began by putting her left foot on the abdomen of the first two, her foot seemingly sinking through their bodies when the other came off the ground. She did not opt to squish their heads but settled it on their torsos and bellies, their hands powerless to stem her weight.

She was fast enough so that none got up and tried to run again, but they did not die instantly either. That occurred only when she had reached the end of the line and started repeating the process backwards.

“Milady!” Was the last word the talkative one uttered before Hesinde knew how much weight compressed his lungs.

Ribs, hips, legs, arms, collarbones, they all broke and collapsed under the happy ogress. It took less than minute and the condemned were significantly flatter than before.

Linbirg had a look at their hair, then turned to see the surviving spearmen. The lad with the mouse-grey mop upon his head was not among them.

“Are you certain these are all?” She asked Agylwart.

He seemed irritated: “All? All but Lancemyr, aye. I cannot promise they’ll be last to run, but at least the others know now what awaits them.”

“No,” she shook her head, “one is missing. The boy who spoke the hilltribes’ gibberish, do you remember?”

Agylwart pursed his lips: “I have counted the men every time we halted, my lady, I assure you these dead ones were the only ones went missing. Speaking of which, that one is still twitching!”

He spoke louder to get the ogress’ attention, pointing at a crushed man who was jittering on the ground while making strange noises and frothed at the mouth like a tourney horse.

The ogress gave a grunt and walked over to him before stomping on his head with her bare heel. Linbirg averted her gaze while one younger knight, perhaps a squire, started retching so violently that he fell off his horse. She should have held her ears as well to spare herself the sickening crunch of it, like stepping on a rotten branch of wood.

When they were going again it had gotten colder, a northern wind driving the chill into their bones, and before long a light snow was falling. Agylwart did not like this.  

“This is Winter.” He told it as though he knew for certain. “If we have to siege Lionstone may Boron have mercy on our souls.”

Linbirg was sitting the horse of the retching squire, who gave up his mount for her with great respect and led the animal by the reins so she wouldn’t have to ride herself. It was a small mongrel of a common Warunker and something much smaller and surer footed, not a very noble steed by any stretch of the imagination but perhaps better suited to the hills. Her own horse, the one they had killed, had been given to her by her father. She should have mourned the animal, but just now she had so many other things on her mind.

“Why should we have to siege Lionstone when we have these ogres?” Haldan of Ashspring contested the older warrior’s observations. “We should have no trouble storming the castle with them.”

Agylwart looked at the younger knight with contempt: “These creatures couldn’t take my little castle, if our lives depended on it.”

That castle was called Mardhur’s Watch and Linbirg remembered what it was like. There was truly not much to say about it, sitting there amidst some misty bogs where men bred cattle to live off cheese and blood pudding. It had a few buildings in its outer wall which only a small part of was made from stone, but the moat outside looked treacherous, as though it could swallow a man and never spit him out again. Mentionable, perhaps, was the enormous bergfried, the keep, which was perhaps twice as tall as any of the ogresses, tremendously dwarfing the rest of the castle.

Haldan laughed ungenerously: “Are you mad? They’d walk over that moat of yours as though it were a glorified ditch. Your walls are wood, my lord. And then what?”

“Then we’d hole up in the tower and rain death down upon them.” Agylwart declared.

The ogresses did not carry weapons and no tools that Linbirg could see. It was probably difficult to find or make things large and sturdy enough for them to use in such a fashion anyway, so large and strong were they. And they would have to be easy to hit for any man throwing things at them. The question was whether or not these things would kill them.

Haldan remained in silent defeat for a moment.

Then he asked: “How are we going to take Lionstone then? Shouldn’t we wait for spring?”

“For spring?!” Linbirg intervened despite her better judgement. “While Firmin ui Lôic is running to the new queen, solidifying his position?”

Agylwart explained: “We cannot take Lionstone by storm. Its walls are too high, the ridge too steep and the bridge over the river is made part of wood so it will burn down. Even if we made it into the forecastle, there is no getting past that giant tower. Both gatehouses have murder holes.”

Linbirg listened intently. She did not understand warfare but always liked to hear when Lionstone was praised. The thought that it shouldn’t be hers anymore, that someone might have stolen it, hurt her deeply. It was her home, after all.

“No, Lionstone’s weakness is that its people think you dead.” Agylwart fatherly turned to Linbirg with a grim smile. “When they see you, not to mention your new friends, how could they not see that Firmin ui Lôic was playing them falsely.”

It wasn’t a question and did not have to be. It was as clear as day, all except for a single fly in the ointment.

She pressed her lips together and mustered up the courage: “But what if he denies it? He would deny it, wouldn’t he. He’d say, oh how sorry he was for the misunderstanding, how glad to see me again and all that…”

The worst was that she had no definitive proof that these were lies, but she did not get to say it. Agylwart shushed her with his hand before pointing to his ears, urging her to listen. Faintly, just barely, carried only by the wind, there were…screams. It sounded as though someone was in bloody agony. It sounded like someone was being tortured.

“They must have found the bastard.” Agylwart gave his mount the spurs. “I will ride ahead and see!”

Haldan did not want to be left behind, however, and spurred his horse as well. Linbirg did the same more out of a reflex than anything else, wondering how many more men would lose their lives to her ogresses before they reached the castle.

She followed Haldan and Agylwart in a gallop, ever towards the loudening sounds and screams. It wasn’t long before Agylwart stopped, however, and they encountered a gruesome scene that was even worse than the execution of the other deserters.

They had crushed this man sheer to pulp. Haldan and Agylwart were looking down on it from their saddles. There were remains of clothing and chainmail all smeared with pink blood but the man’s head and face were untarnished. It was him, the man Agylwart had named Sir Lancemyr.

Remnants of skin could be identified if one dared, but other than that it was hard to tell that this head should have had a body at some point.

“Like the ones we found before.” Agylwart muttered, seemingly half to himself. “It’s what they do when given free rein.”

Haldan of Ashspring turned his horse to put a hand on Linbirg’s arm.

“My lady, don’t look!” He urged. “You need not see such things!”

She pulled away, looking intently with Agylwart’s words ringing in her ears. It was what they did. It was what they could do, with barely any effort. It was what they could do to Linbirg’s enemies, anyone who wanted to take Lionstone for themselves.

“Hrgh.” Agylwart scoffed in contempt. “To think that I had him in mind for one of my daughters. Pah!”

He spat at the severed head upon the ground and moved on, galloping aggressively. Haldan followed. Linbirg remained for a moment looking after them, confused why they would still ride on. Then it dawned upon her that if this man had already been crushed to death then the ogresses must have been torturing someone else, someone who was potentially innocent. Otherwise, they would have turned back and gone back to the column.

She rode after them as fast as her horse permitted.

In the hills, riding at such breakneck pace wasn’t easy, of course. The way was narrow and often overgrown with grass, jagged rock shining to the fore here or there. There were boulders and rockslides to avoid and sometimes a lonely gnarled tree not to get distracted by. The path looped and coiled around the features of the land. It wasn’t long before she had lost sight of her companions.

Then, in a small patch of thin woods by a rivulet, her cloak snagged on something and a jolt of fear went through her body. Already in her mind she cursed Haldan and Agylwart for riding ahead of her. They knew she was reliant upon their protection. It was just a tree branch, however, and she breathed again, but when she had spurred her horse back into motion suddenly there was a man in her path.

She had seen outlaws before, but only ever when they were being hanged. This one fit the description, small, dark clothes and dirty. She saw him only for a moment and instinctually pulled on the reins.

‘Idiot!’ She cried in her head. ‘You should have ridden him down!’

That was what a man would have done, surely. But she was but a babe in the woods. It didn’t matter much, though, because she was far too fast and the road too uneven to stop in time. Her horse screamed but the man remained where he was, all up until the last instant when he twisted aside and raised something, and the blade of a sword came flying up at her.

She didn’t know what to expect, whether she would meet Boron or be sent down to the Netherhells for acting unkindly as a child. Perhaps her thoughts about what she would have Marag’s Children do to her enemies would doom her. That would have made her laugh.

Death certainly seemed to involve a headache, however, a thumping in her forehead as well an uncomfortable pressure in her guts. It also splashed droplets of icy water on her, and she could hear the sound of wet leather boots.

When she opened her eyes, the world seemed upside down. She was being carried through the countryside by way of a small, rocky stream. A pair of thick leather boots was before her, splashing through the water quickly, hastily, stopping here and then jumping to some shallower ground there to continue. The movement and her carrier’s shoulder in her stomach were making her sick so much that she couldn’t appreciate not having died yet.

She groped for her sword on her belt but couldn’t reach it, and her sudden movement made her abductor stop. He flung her forward and pushed her down, kneeling with her in the water and pressing his finger to his mouth to bid her be silent, surprisingly kindly for an outlaw.

Of course, he would have liked her to be silent, she realised. But she wouldn’t make such an easy hostage.

“Help!” She screamed into his face defiantly. “Help! Someone help me!”

“Shhhh” He made, his eyes widening, pressing his finger harder against his mouth.

He wore a padded leather coif and a brown cowl over his shoulders. His tunic was green and a bit thin for the weather. His face was smeared with mud. No honest people would ever step beneath Praios’ gaze this way. And he had small branches tugged in all over himself, the better to hide from justice among the wilderness.

“Help me!” She screamed again with as much vigour as she had. “Hel-!”

Finally, his hand wrapped around her nose and mouth, so hard that she couldn’t twist, couldn’t turn or even breathe anymore. She hoped he would release the grip or she would die here.

“My lady!” He whispered urgently. “Please, shut up or you’ll get us both killed!”

She stopped struggling at once, knowing the voice. She looked at him differently.

He must have felt the strength go out of her body, because he let her go at once. She took deep breaths, heavy, and a shaking took hold of her that turned into violent sobs. Her eyes were clogging up with tears but she was certain she knew who her captor was.

His name was Johril of Dragonspite, First Sword of the barony, who had received his spurs from Linbirg’s very own father and had served house Farnwart loyally since before her birth.

“You?” She whispered to him through her tears.

She felt so betrayed. If even he was in league with Firmin then all was lost, Agylwart’s plan to take the castle never workable.

“I apologise, my lady,” he inclined his head, “I did not know it was you. I would have split your head had I not recognized you in the last instant. It was all I could do to turn the blow flat. But you were unconscious and I had to carry you!”

Linbirg did not understand: “Where are you taking me?”

“To Lionstone, of course!” He was enthusiastic. “It was said you had surely died but…”

He looked as though seeing her alive made him sublimely happy. That made Linbirg very happy as well.

“You are not with Firmin?” She asked, wiping away her tears.

He was perplexed: “Your steward? He rode to Honingen to answer the summons of that great beast they call queen now. She summoned all the fancy lords and ladies to take their vows and…well, we heard you were dead! We heard these monsters killed you, how did you survive?!”

He looked at her as though she was a saint, blissfully unaware. She threw herself at him, hugging him and crying with joy now, not hurt anymore.

“Oh, you blessed fool!” She cried. “If only you knew! The ogres are my friends! They aren’t violent to me, and they call me Isenmann, which means Ironman, because at some point there must have been an ancestor of mine in iron armour who subdued them and made them swear allegiance to him!”

Slowly but with clear determination he pulled out of the embrace, looking at her with deep concern in his eyes.

Johril had never been much to look upon. Three-days-old stubble framed his common face oft as not, and it was worse than that now. He was neither short nor tall, nor did he ever garb himself in any splendour. He preferred wools and leathers. A nasal helm and chainmail were the most extraordinary things he could ever be seen wearing. That was to say nothing of his skills, though. The man had not become first sword on account of blood.

But even at his usual, Linbirg had never seen him with mud on his face, nor parts of plants sticking out of his clothing.

“Why are you here?” She asked him.

There was much more she needed to inquire, she realized now, such as when Firmin had departed, if he had said anything, what roads he would be taking. Also, she realized only now that the name of Dragonspite suddenly received an eerie relevance. Even his sigil was a dragon, yellow on green with some red in there too although the old surcoat he sometimes wore was so faded that it was hard to tell. Dragonspite was a settlement with an old, fortified tower just at the border to the Margraviate of Windhag. Perhaps at some point it had been put there to guard against dragons.

There were so many questions, she didn’t know which one to ask first.

“Did you come to rescue me? And did you see the dragon?”

He looked at her seriously: “We thought you were dead, my lady. Our mission was to avenge you. Now that by some miracle we have you back alive it should give our men sufficient morale to fend off these murderous creatures that have come to disturb your peace! Did you have a chance to see how many there were?”

She shook her head in bewilderment: “Jo, you are confused. The ogres are friends not foes!”

“You are mad with fear, my lady.” He said, not responding to her calling him by the name she used for him when she was little.

He had called her Lin in those days. But those days were gone.

He got up very suddenly, pulling her gently: “Come, we must be going. We are out of the woods, but not out of peril yet.”

“To go where?” She asked. “Where are we, even?”

Nightfall was approaching at this point. Perhaps if Agylwart and the others would light a fire they could find them more easily.

“To our forces, of course!” Johril whispered. “Let the men see you and give them heart! Then I will have an escort bring you to Lionstone.”

“What? What forces?”

He sighed: “Rigan is marching the whole barony south. Firmin has called the banners. I was leading a scouting party before these beasts fell upon us.”

She was speechless: “They fell attacked you?! Oh, what a grave error! Firmin is the enemy, I had no idea you were not in league with him! What of Rigan, though, can we be sure of his loyalties?”

Rigan ui Lôic was slightly younger than Johril, and Firmin’s son and heir. As master of arms at Lionstone, he too had been a good friend to Linbirg and a loyal servant of her father. And like Johril, he had been sent away before Linbirg was dispatched to meet Marag’s Children. Still, there were doubts in her mind.

“His loyalties, my lady?” He asked in despair. “You know him! You know where his heart lies!”

He was helpless due to his own misunderstanding on account of his lack of knowledge, but he was also misinterpreting his shortcoming as Linbirg’s.

“I cannot go to Rigan without my ogres!” She protested, tugging at his grasp of her arm.

In response, he assaulted her, grabbing her by the waist and heaving her back upon his shoulder.

“My lady, I am sorry but you are not of sound mind!” He declared. “Now please, you are safe with me so long as you stay silent!”

She didn’t know what to do to make him understand. There were many things she didn’t understand herself.

“Johril, no!” She shrieked. “You can’t do this to me!”

Mara had committed a grave error indeed. She must have somehow seen the scouts and mistaken them for more deserters. Like as not, Agylwart was to blame. He hadn’t made it clear to her that not every man they encountered ahead of the column was to be regarded as outlaws. She could only imagine what it had been like for Johril and his men, to be at the receiving end of so much power and lust for destruction.

It truly spoke to Johril’s abilities that he had been able to escape the slaughter unharmed.

“Johril,” she tried to reason nonetheless, “I am sorry Marag’s Children did this to you! It was Agylwart’s fault, he didn’t tell them. We…we had no idea you were there! We had desertions on the march and we wanted to catch the runners! It was sheer bad luck that you were there!”

He grunted and seemed to carry her just a tad more roughly, tossing her upwards on a jump and letting her belly crash onto his shoulder. Or maybe, Linbirg was just imagining it.

“Bad luck, my lady?” He whispered. “They butchered us. I could hear them laughing as they tore one of my men apart. They took turns kicking and stomping on men until they were dead. The one who could speak our tongue, she got a hold of my two fastest runners. Two brothers they were and she put the first one down and sat upon him, making the other plead for his...when the first one was done, she took a healthy bite from the second and tossed him away like a rotten pear.”

She had to swallow hard to remain calm: “It was an accident! They thought you were my enemies! They didn’t know! You have to believe me!”

He only gave a ‘hmpf!’ and tossed her up again as he jumped upon the bank of the rocky rivulet to move faster. She had to appeal to him in some different way.

“Ask Agylwart.” She changed her angle. “Ask Haldan of Ashspring or any of the knights from Grindelmoor and Ailintir. You, didn’t you see Agylwart and Haldan riding by you in the trees where you struck me in the face?”

It still throbbed, including in a place where her head should have already ended. A welt was rising. But it only added to her earlier experience of being barged over by an ogress’ foot. She remembered her horse, the one the squire had given to her after the incident and wondered were it might have run to. It was bad enough to lose one horse in any given day. She had lost two.

Johril of Dragonspite replied in a soldiery fashion: “Agylwart Mardhûr of Grindelmoor. Firmin warned us of him. He said that if he did not answer the call to arms it was likely that he and the beasts were in foul play. It would seem he was right. I’ve never liked the man, in truth, nor he me. And Sir Haldan is part of it too, yes?”

Linbirg could have retched at his reply, as well as the shaking and his shoulder in her stomach. She felt a little like on a ship, although in truth seasickness was only something she knew from stories. He made it sound as though he could be Firmin’s creature after all, and all that it entailed. For now, however, perhaps it was best to find that out.

“You are wrong!” She told him bluntly. “Firmin is playing you for a fool. He wants to snatch my title away from me. That’s why he sent me to treat with the ogres while he rides to Honingen to meet the Queen. He wanted Marag’s Children to kill me, but he did not know there was an ancient pact, binding them to me and my family.”

He did not heed her, though: “I understand being captured is quite a shock. I have seen it many a time. Oft times it goes so deep that a man forgets his allegiances and wishes to become his captor’s ally. And you are but a girl. The Twelve held their hands over you, Lin. They kept you alive. You are safe now. You will come to reason in time.”

There it was. Lin. His pet name for her. Was this a trick? Was she being fooled? Could he be right about Agylwart’s ambitions? If there was a plot, but she suspected it in the wrong place…

It seemed odd, now, the way of certainty with which Agylwart had laid open Firmin’s betrayal. But Linbirg liked the old, grizzled warrior. If only it had been simpler. Just now she only knew one thing. She did not want to step before Rigan ui Lôic without the protection of Marag’s Children, for theirs was the only loyalty she was sure of.

“Johril,” she tried, “for the love you bear me…”

“Shhh!” He suddenly made in alarm, ducking down.

He pulled her forward in front of him, looking at her briefly with an apologetic look on his face. Then, again, he held her mouth shut, but at least he allowed her to breathe this time. The air from her nose sounded loud against the side of his callused hand.

When he turned her around, she saw why he had shushed her. The shallow valley they followed through the hills split before them, left and right, and from the right a huge ogress entered into their view, looking far and wide over the ground as though she was searching for something.

‘No, someone,’ Linbirg understood, but if that someone was she or just another of Johril’s scouts to make a mess of, she had no way of knowing.

Johril’s heartbeat was fast. She could feel it through his chest against which he pressed her. He dragged her with him back into the shallow stream and hunkered down against the mud and grass where the water had eaten through the landscape. The water was icy cold.

The ogress slowly turned her head, her nose moving. She was smelling something.

“Isenmann!” She suddenly roared and came storming towards them, like a hound from a leash.

Johril’s body jolted. He let go of Linbirg and she could hear the sword scraping out of its sheath. She turned around in fear, half anxious that he would try to murder her, just as a last service to Firmin before his death. But he did no such thing.

His eyes were transfixed on the ogress even while he jumped over Linbirg as though to protect her. The absurd size difference became more apparent with every step of the ogress.  

But Johril truly was a resourceful warrior. Instead of waiting for his charging attacker, he dashed forward, swinging his sword while screaming bloody murder. The huge woman plummeted clumsily to her knees and was coming for him with her hand outstretched. She wasn’t Mara, nor the innocent looking one, but another, a harsher one with a grim look upon her face and only a light, shaggy curl to her long brown hair.

He stabbed violently, leaning his whole body into it, sinking his steel into the ball of her hand. The ogress screamed and recoiled backwards even while all her massive weight was pushing forth. Her legs slid out from under her, uprooting the grass and digging up rocks from the ground and forming small mounds before her shins. Her buttocks hit the earth with a thump that could even be felt in the river, but Johril was already making his next move.

It looked unbearably handsome, Linbirg couldn’t help but think for a moment as her valiant yet ill-informed protector spun and slashed at the oncoming sole of her foot. A red line could be seen where his sword had parted the ogress’ skin. But that was all.

Now, he was in peril, as he learned when her hands were coming for him once more. Ogresses could move quickly for their size, making them even more dangerous than their enormous size already suggested. Johril slashed again, a wide arc over his head, the edge of the blade biting into the ogress’ finger. She howled and again withdrew the hand he had struck, but the other one was already coming and he did not have his sword in a good position.

He tried another slash but seemed to abandon it when she was quicker than he thought, cowering away only to be enveloped by her fingers curling around his chest and arms.

His sword merely bobbed up and down when his feet left the ground while the ogress lifted him. She was crushing him in her grip so much that he could barely move a wrist. The weapon tumbled to the ground when he saw where she took him. Linbirg could see his mouth in silent scream.

She wondered if she should call out, stop it somehow. Perhaps it might have proved to Johril that she had been right all along. But she did not. She did not say a word. And the poor fool died ignorantly.

It all happened as quickly as they had fought. The ogress brought him up to her opened mouth, inserted him feet first as far as she could muster and then simply bit into him above the waist until his spine snapped, at which time she proceeded to grossly fold and shove the rest of his body into her mouth.

It was a big lump, her cheeks puffed-up like a hamster’s, but her jaw had some room to move still, and it started working right away.

“Ibenmum!” She mumbled over Linbirg while noisily chewing Johril of Dragonspite into more manageable dimensions.

“I need Mara.” Linbirg said after an eerily uncomfortable moment. “I want to go back to the others.”

The huge ogress did not understand and cocked her head. She was unmistakably one of Marag’s Children, and yet a cold feeling settled in Linbirg’s bones. Being alone with this giant creature laid bare how powerless she truly was. If the ogress fancied a second meal over her precious Isenmann then there was nothing Linbirg could do about it.

“You’ve done well!” She added quickly. “You have saved my life, I am very grateful to you!”

“Hmm!” The ogress smiled bloodily, a thing that did not extend to her grim eyes.

Perhaps she was just born that way, Linbirg reasoned.

The ogress leaned forward and slid onto her belly, all the while watching her with her brown eyes. She was still chewing on the First Sword of the Bordermark while doing so. Huge or not, a fully grown man was a bit much for an ogress to eat in one bite. It usually took three or four.

She needed to get out of the water, Linbirg realized. Standing in the riverbed made her seem smaller than she already was, not to mention that her feet were wet and turning into icicles. Her bruised and exhausted body yearned for a sit at the fire, a change of clothes and a swallow of nice, hot wine. She climbed out, but when she did so a warm wind was hitting her, and when she turned her head she saw the ogress’ monstrously huge face looming over her.

“Don’t eat me!” She cried without thinking.

It was a stupid thing to say, lest she put ideas into this giant head.

“Isenmann.” The ogress was smiling coldly.

She had swallowed her meal.

There was something about her breath, however. It was warm and felt slightly of blood, but it was also…different. The ogress was breathing heavily. Not in the way one breathed after exertion, though. That was the issue. And Linbirg knew that kind of breath. There had been a day, it was around the time her first ever moonblood had been upon her, that her father took her aside and explained to her in very clumsy terms how a man went about laying with a woman. She remembered it as terribly awkward but had found solace in the fact that it did not seem to take much effort on the woman’s part.

Her own body she had not thus far explored in this matter. She had learned it belonged to her future husband and she had been busy besides. She had never touched it. She hadn’t dared. It frightened her. Sometimes, though, sometimes in the saddle when the way was smooth and the rhythm of the horse’s trot pressed the heavy leather of the saddle up against her. That was from whence she knew that breath.

Another gust of hot air washed over her, blowing her hair. The ogress rose, her eyes on Linbirg, back on her behind and pushing her hips forward. There was something demanding about it, something eerily inescapable.

‘I will have my pleasure off you.’ Those cold, great eyes above were saying. ‘And I will have it now.’

And there was nothing Linbirg could do.

She didn’t want to die. Surely, this violated the ancient pact or whatever was binding Marag’s Children to Linbirg. But perhaps it was different for some of them, perhaps they behaved differently outside of Mara’s commanding influence. Whatever it was, Linbirg had to make it through this.

The ogress pushed away the heavy curtain of furs between her legs revealing a bush of brown hair and the outer hints of her giant womanhood. Linbirg wondered if there were male ogres and shuddered at the thought of how they must be made. A grunt, a shove, two fingers pushing on either side of it and pulling it open, revealing a glistening pink inside. Things like this weren’t meant to be looked upon, surely. None of this was meant to happen.

Tears were running down Linbirg’s face as she was pushed towards it from behind until her cheeks touched it. She was down on her knees too, subdued and taken advantage of.

The smell was irritating and seemed to penetrate her very mind, the feel of the skin alien, damp and leathery. The ogress grunted again, crushing Linbirg’s head against the pink, damp skin. When she looked up upon the sound, she saw the ogress performing a licking motion with her tongue. Linbirg did not want to die.

If she could remember as little of this as possible, she thought while doing what was asked of her with tears streaming from her eyes. The one who did this to her was enjoying the moment, breath after deep breath, appreciating every time Linbirg’s tongue travelled over wherever her head was guided. Linbirg’s eyes were closed but she was forced to witness it with all her other senses. The worst was when a finger, as thick as the branch of a great tree, came down to crush her face into it, all to the moans of the gigantic woman.

When it was over, her abuser was very nonchalant. She stood, cleared her throat and adjusted her furs, then proceeded to pick Linbirg off the ground firmly by the waist. To travel in this fashion must have been akin to flying, but Linbirg was too numb to take it in. Along the way, they ran into other ogresses stalking the hills, giant predators hunting for tiny, helpless prey. Then Mara was there.

“We feared for you, Ironman.” The ogress eyed her with concern. “A man took you? What happened to your head?”

Linbirg looked to the ground but she was still alone amongst ogresses. Sobs started to well up in her chest again and all she could do was nod.

Mara took her from the other ogress and exchanged a few more words in that old, brutal tongue. Then Linbirg was pressed into the thicket of dirty pelts that covered Mara’s bosom.

“You truly are the Ironman.” Mara said warmly enough. “We should have protected you better.”

‘Yes.’ Linbirg thought. ‘But who will protect me from her?’

The offending ogress was limping on her injured foot beside Mara as if nothing had ever happened. There was no shame at all, no hint of rue. It was a great injustice. But she did not speak the common tongue.

Linbirg decided that she trusted Mara enough with this: “She…did things to me. The one who saved me. She…forced me…between her legs.”

Mara lowered her gaze in surprise: “Of course. You are the Ironman. This is the bargain.”

It didn’t make a whole lot of sense to Linbirg and all she could do was stare back.

A smile played along Mara’s lips: “Do you not know the story? Many summers and winters ago, long before the earth swallowed up my kind, the Isenmann came into Marag’s valley intent on slaying her. She was always preying upon your little people, you see, hunting them for food and to make toys for her children to play with. She had never seen a man wear the shiny garb of iron that he wore, however, and so rather than to eat him or give him away, she kept him, all to herself. She liked the way his iron clothes glittered when they caught the light, and he was bigger than any trinket she could snatch off your kind before.”

Linbirg did not like where this was going, and her discontent must have shown because it made Mara laugh.

“The Isenmann was a clever little fellow, however, and once he understood that he was only a trinket to her, he grew rather bored and lonely. Then, one night, he couldn’t stand it anymore, so he climbed between her legs and did…it…to her. She awoke, of course, and saw him, but the pleasure was so great that she did not want him to stop. Afterwards, she wanted it from him most every night, and when her daughters that were old enough learned of it they made him do it to them until they almost killed him. Marag couldn’t live without it anymore, so, clever as he was, the Isenmann made her a proposal. Defend my lands against the fire-breathing lizard, he said, and once every new moon I will come back to you. And ever since that day, Marag and her children defended the lands of the Ironman, and once every new moon he came into their valley to fulfil his end of the bargain.”

“But why?!” Linbirg interjected before any more of the frightening tale could come to light. “The Ironman is dead and so is Marag, isn’t she?! What do we care what they did many, many winters ago?”

Mara giggled: “Listen to the story, little one! Because when it came to pass that Marag was burned badly by the fire-breathing lizard, and she lay there dying, she made the Isenmann swear an oath that he would continue to give his gift to her daughters, and their daughters as well, and that after his death his heirs would carry on upholding the bargain until the end of time. And she died. An oath made on the bed of death is magic, don’t you know?! And when he became too old and frail to go up into the hills, he made his son go in his stead as he had promised. And that’s why we are here.”

“How do you know all this?” Linbirg challenged her at once.

Calling it into question seemed like a reasonable idea if reason counted for something.

Mara laughed again: “From my mother. And she had it from her mother, and she from her mother and so on and so on. I do not know how many. I know only that it is so.”

It dawned upon Linbirg then that if not for this horrid old legend she would be chewed to pieces swimming in Mara’s belly. She banished the thought quickly, but the flipside of that coin did not look very rosy either. It seemed like she was caught.

“Do…” She found it hard to find the words. “Do I have to…must I do it to all of you?”

“Once every new moon. Do not fret. Like Marag, we do not wish to overburden our little Ironman. You are the only one who can give this gift to us.”

Linbirg felt her head throbbing with all this news. This last bit didn’t even seem to make any sense either. If Linbirg could be forced to do it, then surely Mara and the others could force any other human being to do it too. They could even do it to each other if by some miracle they would someday forsake the ways of violence. That was unlikely, of course. But if they needed people, then they could just use prisoners, or peasants or Linbirg’s enemies. Perhaps that was the solution, provided she would be believed.

“Once with each of you, every month?” She asked again before pressing her lips together.

But no matter how many questions she posed, none made it past Mara’s laughter, not even the suggestion of using some human man who might be able to enjoy the task, or having a male ogre do it. Male ogres, from what Linbirg could gather, were only ever interesting for their gifts.

Ultimately, Mara clicked her tongue: “Now you’ve done it, little one. You’ve asked me so many questions about it that I need to have it, right here and now! Do you think you could…?”

“No! No!” Linbirg squirmed in the hand around her bottom. “Please don’t make me! Not now!”

“Ha, ha, ha!” Mara threw back her head, her mane flying. “I was only teasing, little one. Get some rest. But remember, it won’t be long before there is a new moon.”

And there were three bloody gigantic dozen of them. It was truly terrible.

The shock of the unexpected duty ebbed away when she was set back down among her own kind. There were wine, hard cheese and many questions as well as some criticism of Haldan and Agylwart for almost getting their liege lady captured.

Linbirg stuck with the tale of the abduction, not mentioning that it was possible Johril genuinely believed he had rescued her. She kept that part to herself but started watching Agylwart closely.

The ogresses had turned the scouting party into their supper and unfortunately left none to be questioned. That left them in the unknown as to where the big host was.

“If someone got away, they know we’re coming.” Haldan was saying.

Mara, watching from on high, patted her belly, normally lean and flat but slightly bulged now: “None of them did.”

The only thing certain was that it had been a very large party, suggesting an even larger host, according to Agylwart.

“If Rigan knows we’re coming he’ll ambush us on the morrow.” The old warrior said darkly. “We will have no choice but to send our own scouts.”

Linbirg was sceptical: “Yes, but isn’t this what you wanted?”

She watched his reaction carefully but his face might have been carved from rock.

“A pitched battle is better than assaulting Lionstone, aye.” He replied. “But walking blind into a trap is a challenge I am too old for.”

Linbirg had liked his wisdom before. Now she found it belittling. She also sensed a distinct lack of respect from the old man. He didn’t address her properly and never asked her for her opinion. What Johril had said about him had sounded unlikely at the time. But she did not doubt Johril’s convictions.

When it came to sleeping, she pushed herself into the foreground. No longer should men think Agylwart was the one really in charge.

“Sleeping side by side is too dangerous.” She declared. “The ogres might roll over in their sleep and crush you.”

She therefore divided the camp into ogres and people, choosing for herself to sleep with the ogres. Many questioned her on that decision, as she knew they would, but Agylwart was not one of them.

That night, while she leaned against Mara’s arm and listened to the digestive gurgles of the ogress’ belly, she thought about what she should do. There were eyes and ears everywhere, however, because Agylwart had insisted on posting many sentries. He feared Rigan might fall upon them in the night. So, she had no way of telling the ogress what her conclusions were.

After Mara had drifted off to sleep, Linbirg could tell she was being taken. Another ogress leaned over and gently took her away, wordlessly leaning back and spreading her legs wide for Linbirg to do her duty. It was considerate of the ogress not to moan too loudly, and to guide her in the darkness.

But once Linbirg had fulfilled her end of the bargain with the first did the next one snatch her.

Three giant women abused her that night before they finally let off her. That left three and thirty. Mara had left out what would happen if she couldn’t do it. But then again, Mara was one of those three and thirty, and Linbirg knew what that might mean.

She got a taste of it that night too. The third ogress wasn’t as considerate as the others. She was younger than Linbirg’s age, by the brief look of her Linbirg in the light of a waning moon, and neither experienced nor patient. And Linbirg wasn’t very good at what she was doing.

This led to discontented moans and grunting. But the hand that before had guided Linbirg’s head never came this time. It was a sorry affair that left them both dissatisfied.

Eventually, the young ogress drifted off to sleep and closed her legs with Linbirg in between them, leaving her stuck and unable to free herself no matter how hard she struggled. Attempts to wake up her new captor resulted in the giant young woman turning sideways and crushing Linbirg under the weight of her leg.

Perhaps it wasn’t negligence but malice, revenge for the disappointment. Whatever it was, Linbirg almost lost consciousness for the third time that day. It might have been the end of her, had the disgruntled behemoth not released her in the last instant.

Morning found her sore but safe back in Mara’s arms, and strangely warm too. That warmth gave her strength. It was early, not truly sunrise yet as Praios’ disk was still hiding beyond the horizon.

She touched Mara’s giant cheek to wake her up, demanding: “Carry me.”

That seemed to be all the information the ogress needed. They wandered through the hills until there was a sufficiently secluded place that had clear running water. Mara put her down so she could wash herself.

Excitement of the female sex led to wetting, she had been instructed once. Ogres were no different in that regard, and that wetting had now crusted upon her skin like salt, and particularly in her hair.

Mara washed herself too, smiling knowingly. Then she came over Linbirg and pushed her to the ground naked.

“Wait!” Linbirg shouted. “What are you doing?”

The times before had been different, with the ogresses on their backs and their furs still on, despite everything. Mara on the other hand seemed poised to sit down on Linbirg’s body and crush her.

“Recline yourself, Ironman.” The ogress husked. “I want to teach you this way. Remove your clothes. It is better without them.”

Sleeping in mail was nothing Linbirg wanted to make a habit of, but among the ogresses she had never taken it off thus far. That had been before Mara’s story, however, and had been a superstition. Even without steel upon her body, she was still the Isenmann.

So, she stripped down as she was asked to do, only hesitating when it came to her smallclothes. Nakedness meant vulnerability, but then again, not even her hauberk would prevent any harm if Mara decided to sit down.

The ogress watched her from above, a playful look in her eyes: “Well then, Ironman, which part of it don’t you understand?”

“I...I know it involves my mouth. I just...I just don’t know where...”

“Where to put it?” Mara laughed and spread her legs wider, pointing with her finger.

It was a grotesque view.

“See this? This is where the pleasure lies. If you just lick there for long enough, that is it. But that’s not how fun is made. No, the fun is everywhere but there. Keep the best for last, do you understand?”

Linbirg shook her head: “But that’s sufficient, I need only to know wh-!”

Without warning, Mara’s huge, ogrish behind came crashing down on her. It was well that she was naked, or else Mara’s crotch would have drenched her clothing. The ogress was well and truly excited.

The problem was that she was also angered. She didn’t sit down with all her weight or Linbirg would have been squashed, but as things stood, that point she supposed to save for last was hanging right in her face while Mara’s heavy butt cheeks were weighing on her body.

“Sufficient is not enough!” Mara scowled from atop, seemingly unaware how nonsensical it sounded.

Linbirg got angry as well, despite her fear. All this mistreatment was clearly not part of the bargain. She could barely move her arms to beat against the colossal arse crushing her.

“Let me go!”

“No.” Mara replied matter-of-factly. “I will only get up if you do it right. I will help you. If you feel like drowning, hit me with the flat of your hand. I will let you breathe then.”

How absurd that was, went through Linbirg’s head when Mara started to shuffle forward on her knees. Then, the ogress lowered herself a bit more, increasing the pressure but also plunging Linbirg’s head right into her wetness.

It was no use struggling now. And Mara was right. Linbirg had to learn this craft, this skill, this duty, lest her value diminished. If she wanted her ogresses to crush her enemies, then she had to do this. That did not make it comfortable, though, and neither did it help her breathing.

Mara giggled obliviously: “I’m sorry I have to put you through this. It is only for your...ooooh, for...oooh, yes, good!”

It was hard not to drown in it. Linbirg’s hair was soon dripping with that wetness. The taste was strange, the feeling even stranger. But it was her duty. The thing that worried her the most was the soft but firm pressure the beginnings of Mara’s butt cheeks were putting on her chest. Any misjudgement, overexcitement or negligence on the ogress’ part could mean to get every rib in Linbirg’s puny little body broken.

But then, much quicker than Linbirg would have dared to hope, Mara lifted herself off, shuffled backwards and came back down. The skirmishing was over. It was time for the battle And Linbirg gave it her all, disgusting and demeaning as though she found the task.

When it was done, she did not care to venture a guess of how much from Mara’s wetness she had swallowed. She took another cold wash and made to redress herself, but Mara once again started to pin her down.

“I enjoyed that, Ironman.” She smiled. “Perhaps one day, so will you.”

‘If I were a man, then maybe’, Linbirg thought.

It was oft hard to understand what went on inside a manly head. But that wasn’t what Mara had in mind. Instead, her huge, ogrish tongue come out, the same that had tasted a young tribeswoman and at least one of Johril’s scouts the day before, and began to worm its way in between her legs.

She shouted: “No, no!”

But it was no use. The huge, pink, uncomfortably warm muscle pushed her apart as though she was made of straw. Mara’s spit was on her skin, and then the tongue, much too huge for her, was rubbing up against her own crotch. A giant hand came up to push her down, ending her struggle easily. It was terrible.

Mara was gentle enough, as gentle as a beast of such proportions could be. One of Linbirg’s arms was pinned so hard against the ground that it started tingling, but that was already the worst of the pain. The tongue between her legs did not hurt her. It just coated her thinly in thick, stinking saliva and she wanted nothing more than to make it stop.

Eventually, Mara understood that her efforts were futile.

“It seems I’m just too big for you, little one.” She laughed.

Linbirg’s heart started freezing when she noticed the change. She was supposed to be the Isenmann, Ironman, man of iron. Not little one. Was Mara becoming too familiar? Was Linbirg too poor at performing the role? That was a dangerous game Linbirg did not want to play through to the end.

“I had believed I meant something to you.” She complained, her jaw quivering with fear, fighting to keep her dignity.

She couldn’t even look at the ogress and chose to occupy herself by gathering up her things.

Mara seemed taken aback: “But you mean everything to us!”

“Enough to obey me?” Linbirg asked pointedly. “Aren’t you mine, like you said?”

The ogress’ voice turned soldiery, like Johril’s had: “I obey your every command, Ironman.”

“Good.” Linbirg breathed. “Then I wish you to never do anything to me against my will ever again, bar to save me from mortal danger.”

“I apologise.” Mara replied after a moment that must have been realization. “I…I thought you might enjoy it. You looked so sad, so…frightened.”

Linbirg was starting to feel much better at hearing this, confident enough to pull on her shirt.

“I am frightened because I am in a very precarious situation.” She finally said. “I will need you to kill Agylwart for me.”

It was surprising to hear herself being able to say it with so much confidence. Before, she had harboured doubts over whether she even could. Perhaps that meant that it was the right thing.

“Consider it done.” Mara replied dutifully.

No question. No doubt. Linbirg liked that. On the other hand would she have appreciated the opportunity to justify herself, more for her own sake than Mara’s.

She explained it anyway: “I have reasons to question his loyalty. Now, you cannot just go up to him and kill him. It needs to look like a mishap. Wait for the right opportunity. Perhaps you can loosen a boulder so that it squashes him, or some night you accidentally step on him in the brush when he’s making water. It cannot be obvious.”

If an ogress even was capable of such a wily thing was the big question, but Mara wasn’t an idiot.

She sounded confident: “I understand. Consider him flattened.”

While being carried back to camp sitting on Mara’s hand, Linbirg contemplated what to do once Firmin ui Lôic was dealt with. Without Agylwart, that was a thing she needed to know beforehand, so as to be ready in time. She supposed she had to go to Honingen anyway and claim her title from the new queen. They had heard stories about her. She was supposed to be as tall as the sky and capable of eating entire villages between meals.

Surely, though, those had to be the usual exaggerations. The longer a word travels, the heavier it becomes, her father used to say. In fact, Linbirg rather suspected that that new queen couldn’t be larger than Mara, or certainly not by a lot. It was simply unimaginable.

Seen thusly, Linbirg would surely make quite an impression at Honingen, making sure her name was known and her status secure. Then, perhaps, she might look into finding a husband. But that was a thing yet too far from her mind.

It turned out that Agylwart had not even waited for her. The camp was still there and the majority of the men, as well as all of Marag’s Children, but the old warrior had gathered a scouting party and ridden off with their quickest horses. Linbirg was half tempted to send Mara after him right then and there.

Between Johril and Agylwart, at least one man was telling the untruth. And Johril had already died for Linbirg when he could have killed her. In any event, killing him was simply the prudent thing to do. The time and place now were up to Mara.

It was an hour after they had started marching again that they saw Agylwart, coming at them at a fast pace and the usual grim expression to him.

“They’ve stolen a night’s march on us.” He declared. “We will meet them within the hour. I have found a nice piece of ground for an ambush. If these monsters are with us, we can hit their vanguard from all sides at once and crush them. Rigan has close to a thousand spears at his back. Do you trust the ogres?”

The question was directed at Linbirg who did not quite know what to make of it.

Haldan of Ashspring gave a gasp: “So many! Are we sure we have to fight them? What if it is all one big misapprehension?”

Agylwart gave the young landed knight a look to shut him up before returning to Linbirg: “You can take your chance with the traitor’s whelp if you dare. But if he is in it with his father, give him half a chance and it will be your head.”

Haldan proved stubborn in this matter and once again replied before Linbirg: “How could he, with these beasts behind her?”

It was a surprisingly good point, Linbirg found, but as ever, Agylwart remained unimpressed.

“Did they hinder Sir Johril?” He asked, calmly but dismissively as well. “What more proof do you require?”

Linbirg didn’t have proof that Agylwart was playing her falsely either, and still she had ordered his death. She couldn’t afford to take chances. Against that stood near one thousand possibly innocent men. In the entire Bordermark there lived less than two and a half thousand souls in total, give or take. Firmin must have raised every male of fighting age there was, and probably more than that, grey beards and green boys from every village.

“I mean to question Rigan, if possible.” She determined. “The rest is no concern of mine.”

No chances.

She knew too little of tactics and strategy to overthrow or alter Agylwart’s plan. Seasoned warrior that he was, he had laid out in great detail how they would wipe out Rigan’s vanguard quickly and violently to send the rest of the unprepared marching column to routing.

It was foolish, surely, to go into the hills with so many. They were slow, tired, stretched out long and thin. And they were going to fight Marag’s Children like that, not any ordinary foe. Then again, a thousand men seemed like a number that could beat Mara’s six and thirty.  Johril alone might have slain one, had he possessed a little more luck.

The only thing Linbirg determined was that she would not partake in the battle. Agylwart agreed. She waited with her shield in her hand, chainmail and helmet on and sword by her side, atop a large hill, guarded by no one but Haldan of Ashspring. If Agylwart meant to kill her, he already had ample opportunity and chosen not to. If he needed her, he needed her alive.

And all ogresses were to be needed in the ambush.

“I can trust you, Haldan, can I not?” She asked as they watched Rigan’s column slowly come into view.

It was like a long, colourful snake, slithering through the landscape.

He turned his head: “Of course you can, my lady!”

She was relatively certain of it. But then again, perhaps it was prudent to have him removed too, later. Just to be sure.

At the helm of the column flew two massive banners in the wind, Farnwart’s ferns and river, and the black and white cat of house Lôic. They must have had that made new, she realised, strengthening her convictions. The Lôics had the stewardship and a demesne that included a holdfast and village, but this was clearly a baronial banner in size.

A cat was closer to a lion than river and ferns, but if crests were to govern possessions then by rights Lionstone should have belonged to the mighty Stepahans who carried the lion in their banner.

It took so long for the army to arrive in its destined spot that Linbirg almost thought the moment would never come. But a horn was blown then at the behest of Agylwart, and ogresses rose from behind their hills and commenced the slaughter with horrifying roars of: “Isenmann!”

Linbirg and Haldan could hear the screaming of horses and men upon their hill, the laughing and grunting of Marag’s children, and the sound bodies made when an ogress stomped upon them with all her might.

Until the breaking of morale among Rigan’s van it took but a minute, though twenty passed before the killing started to die down. Mara came up grinning from the battlefield, her feet smeared with blood and dirt.

“It is done.” She proclaimed, even while the rest of Marag’s children were clearly still hunting down the fleeing remnants. “And we have captured their leader. It grieves me to tell you, Ironman, that your old friend Agylwart has died.”

Linbirg found it hard to feel anything other than relief.

Her voice sounded hollow and rigid, like an iron kettle: “He was a great warrior. I shall truly miss him.”

She paid a side-glance to Haldan to see how he was taking it. The young man was looking rather too incredulous for her taste.

After a momentary decision she looked to Mara, drew a line across her throat and motioned at the knight, and the ogrish woman went into motion with a giggle.

“What?! No!” He screamed pathetically while fumbling at his scabbard.

He never got the blade out of it before Mara almost gently crushed his torso in her hands, throttling him till he turned blue and his entire body started shaking, his horse running away terrified by the act. The ogress finished him off by lazily tramping down on his body one last time as she went to pick up Linbirg and carry her to the battlefield.

It was safer that way. If she had ogres, she had no need for horses anymore, and a few other things.

The carnage below was not anywhere as clean as what had happened to Haldan. Entire rocks were painted with the blood of men. Lionstone hadn’t even possessed enough spears to arm so many, for among the dead lay scythes, threshing flails and sickles, the tools of peasants misused for war.

From her own people, those knights, squires and levies of her own side, Linbirg noted receiving harsh looks. They hadn’t been many to begin with, and they had taken wounded and many dead. They also did not appreciate having to butcher their own folk like that, Bordermarkers, fellow Albernians all. No doubt they had known some of the men and boys that had died at her orders. Such things could breed resentment, and resentment treachery.

In a shallow ravine where the bodies lay side by side and half atop of each other like a patch of grain crop flattened by the wind, they found the old man. There was little doubt as to how he had died. He lay atop his horse, and his horse atop those poor souls he had been charging. His steed’s belly had burst under the weight of the ogress that had trodden upon him in the carnage, seemingly never knowing whom she had crushed. It was perfect.

“Well done.” She told Mara in a soft voice, fearful that any of her people might hear her. “I think my men will ask questions about Haldan, and I do not cherish those looks they are giving me. When I have seen Rigan I will call them all together and I will need you and yours to help me get rid of them too.”

Mara smiled: “I will spread the word.”

Rigan was next, on his knees between the naked feet of the ogress watching him. His black and white surcoat was in tatters, he was spattered with blood and his head hung limply still stuck in a polished pot helm with a fixed metal visor. He did not look up at Mara’s approach.

Linbirg had never seen a more defeated man and liked it so much. She motioned for Mara to put her down and the beast obeyed without incident. In turn, the ogress behind Rigan went to take both his hands into one of her own to prevent him from trying any shenanigans. He did not offer up any resistance.

He only looked up when Linbirg ordered the ogress to remove his helm and uttered an incredulous gasp that reverberated hollowly inside the metal. Then his vision was blocked by the thick female fingers, bobbing, bending and yanking until the shiny steel came off. Linbirg was half afraid he might get his neck broken.

“You are alive?!” He blabbered as soon as he was free. “Are you their captive?”

She studied him, this nondescript, common-faced man. If there was anything remarkable about him, then the genuineness of his reaction. On the other hand, Johril had said they all thought her dead, just like Firmin wanted. She thought about how to get the truth out of him.

Tears were running down Rigan’s cheeks now: “I’m sorry, my lady! I have failed you! Had we known you were still alive, we would have tried to rescue you. Had we won the battle...”

It was the same as Johril.

“What flag flies over Lionstone?” She asked him pointedly.

The question seemed to take him aback and he answered squeamishly: “Ours. We thought you were dead, my lady, and my father said he could not look upon the colours of your house any longer for they reminded him of you.”

A bark of laughter erupted from Linbirg’s throat, loud and asinine, clearly frightening Rigan, as well as the ogress behind him.

“Your father was the one who sent me on my quest with nothing but a few spearmen to protect me!”

Rigan cocked his head: “Sent? But he is your steward! He said you went against his council but he exalted your bravery trying to spare us this massacre!”

She turned to look at the scene of carnage again. It was impossible to see all of it from down here because of the hills in the way and the size the host had possessed. The slain were all her subjects and they had died at her orders. But she found it hard to care. She was dealing with a threat to her very existence, so extreme measures were naturally warranted. She couldn’t take any chances.

“He lied.” She said matter-of-factly, as if she knew for certain.

The way Johril and now Rigan acted, it could have been the other way around, the tale about Agylwart true. Maybe none of it was true. Maybe both. Linbirg knew only that she wanted to stay alive.

“Mara,” she looked up at the towering ogress with her lion-like mane, “seize him and squeeze him. Until he tells the truth.”

He protested immediately but his mind did not yet comprehend that she was not a hostage. It was only when Mara had easily wrestled him to the ground and positioned herself to sit on him that he started begging.

“P-p-please, my lady! This is wrong! Stop her, I beg you! For the love you bear me!”

She motioned for Mara to lower herself so that she would no longer have to listen to it, which the ogress was all too happy to do. Her buttocks looked like a gargantuan fluffy pillow in the furs she wore, but it did not go soft on hi, exactly. She could see his face sticking out, his eyes bulging, his mouth filling up with his tongue and his jaw moving as if to speak with spittle running from it uncontrollably.

Mara did not use all her weight, though. Else she would have crushed Rigan’s ribcage and doomed him to die. It was painful, but an asphyxiating instead of a bloody death, and importantly he was as helpless as a babe during the ordeal. When his face turned from white to red and then to purple, she motioned the ogress to rise. Feeling as though she controlled the behemoth made her feel strange, like she, and not Mara, was wielding the power over life and death.

Rigan could not speak right away, but not for want of trying. He wheezed and croaked until finally he found his voice again, although it was scarcely more than a whisper.

“Please! Believe me! Do not do this, please!”

“Where is your father?” She asked him, calmly but determined. “Does he not ride for Honingen to claim my title for himself?”

The realization was strong enough to make his eyes bulge and his breath stop even without Mara’s help, albeit it only a moment.

“But…” He croaked and stammered. “But we thought you were dead!”

Linbirg smiled at him before giving Mara a nod.

“Please, no, we can catch up to him and he will…please!”

The ogress sat down too slowly and there was nothing fixing him at this time, so when her buttocks descended he managed to free his torso from under it. This led to an angry snort from Mara and the lifting of her arms to tug him back under, which in turn resulted in a sudden and stark increase in the weight upon his legs.

Several deep, muffled pops could be heard from beneath the ogress rump and Rigan cried out in agony.

“You are going back under there, little man.” Mara spoke over his screams with a jester’s ease. “The Ironman said so.”

All it took was to lift herself once more and shoving him under, and once the titanic weight of the ogress was compressing his chest again so seized his screaming.

“He will not be lively for much longer.” Mara warned after a moment.

Linbirg was looking straight into Rigan’s eyes, watching them bulge and appeal to her as she wondered whether he was telling the truth. It didn’t matter much. She had considered him a friend once but just now nothing was certain and she could not afford a gamble. Besides, it would be terribly awkward to let him live, seeing how she had killed close to every fighting age male in her own barony as well as torturing him and permanently damaging his legs.

“He doesn’t have to be.” She said without looking up, studying Rigan’s reaction.

His eyes went only a little wider still and the sense of urgency increased. It was a fascinating feeling.

Mara understood the message and lifted her hands, letting her full weight bear down on poor little Rigan. There was a sound much like stepping on a dry pinecone, only muffled by furs and mounds of flesh. Something thick and red came forced up from Rigan’s throat and lodged between his teeth, his jaws forced open. Blood poured from his mouth as well, and his nose. He lived for a couple of moments longer, though, staring at Linbirg in a way that was half pleading and half accusatory.

Unfortunately, his torture had not yielded many answers. Given his loyalty it seemed obvious that Firmin had left him in the dark as well, however, hence his surprise at seeing her alive. So it didn’t really matter.

“Weakling, he-he.” Mara cackled when she climbed to her feet and his flattened form was revealed.

His chainmail and clothing concealed the worst of it, making him seem as though a god had made him that way from clay. That was other than his head, of course.

The rest of Linbirg’s human companions went quicker. She called them all together into a neat spot in the middle of three hills. When they were there and it became time for her speech, she only called for Mara.

The ogresses descended on the remaining levies, squires and knights like a pack of wolves, albeit one that mocked its prey while killing it underfoot. It took longer than expected because the ground was uneven and it was slightly awkward for so many gigantic creatures to kill so much smaller ones in tight proximity. Linbirg had the feeling for each time they stepped on man they stepped on each other’s toes as well, leading to much laughter and giggling. It didn’t help either that ogresses now outnumbered men, as a strapping young squire learned when he was shared by means of tearing him in two at the waist.

Being alone, the only remaining human among the ogresses, was a bit daunting. But if Linbirg could trust anyone at this point, it were Marag’s children.

That wasn’t to say that they were perfect, however. When they went on, Linbirg riding on Mara’s arm while the ogress made a disgusting meal of her horse, ogresses oft reported the smell of man flesh when they discovered fleeing and hiding men from the battle. They had missed those and let them get away, despite everything. 

In fact, the survivors eventually became so many that Linbirg showed mercy on them, ordering Marag’s Children to seize the murder and only chase them off. She would have liked to call upon them and tell them everything would be alright. But most of them she never saw and those she did see were too busy running.

Whoever laid eyes upon her person, gaping incredulously, she was too uneasy about to let them go spread tales.

“Squash that one.” She would point and tell Mara, and the ogress would veer from her path to trample whomever hit Linbirg’s ire.

That was a fun game to pass the time, which was needed because the going was slower now. For one, Linbirg had ordered the baggage train seized. It wasn’t very large for a thousand-man army, she judged, but contained many food stocks and beasts of burden for the ogresses to carry, which both of them hated. Secondly, despite their size and strength, ogresses had taken injuries in the fighting. One was limping with a presumably twisted ankle she had gotten by a careless step in the hills. Several others had taken arrows, which did not seem to do much other than pain them, but in legs and calves they did end up slowing their speed, as was the case with wounds from cuts and spear blows, particularly to the underside of their feet.

They were neither infallible, nor invulnerable. And Linbirg would do good to remember that.  

When finally they arrived at Lionstone late in the afternoon, the castle looked almost empty. Lôic’s colours were flying from every tower. And as huge and terrifying the ogresses were, these walls might have easily repulsed them, provided the castle had still been well garrisoned.

It took a while for them to receive answer at the gate. When Hobbles, the old guardsman, stuck his face out of a murder hatch, he almost dropped dead from fright.

“Praios have mercy!” He cried. “They’re here, everyone, quick, the monsters are upon us!”

He did not see his liege lady, of course. Not with three dozen bloodied, pelt-wearing ogresses on the bridge before the castle. And when he finally heard Linbirg’s voice calling him he seemed to lose all sense.

“My lady? No! Ye’re dead! Sorcery! This is sorcery, I am being bewitched! Someone, help! Help, anyone!”

It took awfully long for that someone to arrive, but Linbirg was too anxious of what Agylwart had said about the castle to let Mara knock down the gate. She used that time to let the ogress explore whether the wooden part of the bridge could hold enough weight to even allow a crossing. Surprisingly, it held, but they determined all the same that they should not let more than one at a time put her feet upon it.

Under normal circumstances, Lionstone was home to five and forty souls, ten of which were guardsmen. That number must have been tremendously reduced, however, because other than old Hobbles not a soul seemed to be there. Indecisive without council, Linbirg hesitated for too long and Mara took the reigns by marching over the wooden bridge and kicking the gates noisily with her foot.

The wood creaked dangerously and the bridge was swaying beneath their feet then. Some ogresses even called out in alarm. More interestingly, however, they could hear female screams come from inside the castle, and the voices of others ushering them away. There appeared to be next to no male there.

It was Obra the washerwoman, widely believed to be Hobbles’ daughter, who finally brought some light into the darkness. She recognized Linbirg’s shouting and had her superstitious father open the gates at last.

“They’ve gone all way looking’ for ye, milady.” She told Linbirg with wide eyes while Marag’s children were entering the forecastle one after the other, visibly astonished by the yard’s interior, like they had never seen anything like it before.

Linbirg snapped her fingers to tear the old girl’s attention away from the ogresses: “Didn’t you say you all thought I was dead?”

Obra blinked: “Aye, that’s so, milady. Lookin’ for ye corpse they went so they could burry ye with priest and all, and to avenge ye. The Sir First Sword, he was mad with rage, he was, and his lordship steward near pulled his ‘air out!”

Lionstone had not had a court chaplain of any kind ever since Linbirg could remember, the duty instead being fulfilled by wandering clergymen who dwelled in the nearby village of Lakefield from time to time. Boron priests were particularly important, performing rites over the dead and if possible burying them as well, to prevent their rise as ghosts or eviller things. Praios priests sometimes spoke justice and absolved lesser sins. Peraine priests and priestesses blessed fields and livestock for a bountiful harvest. The servants of Travia performed marriage pacts and blessed households. Those were all the most important ones.

Priests of Tsa, Firun, Phex and all the others they never saw much of in the Bordermark. Or anything at all. It simply wasn’t the place.

“So, there is a Boron priest here?” Linbirg concluded from what Obra had said.

That proved to be so, and a great surprise as well. It was the lad with the grey hair, that queer boy who had gone missing. He wore black robes now, muddied at the hem, and an hourglass about his belt with sand continuously running downward.

“You?!” Linbirg barked at him when he appeared before her in the yard. “What is the meaning of this?”

She had half a mind to have the truth squeezed out of him by Mara immediately, even though that hadn’t worked particularly well with Rigan, mostly because she hadn’t asked him the right questions.

“Time is running.” He replied, tapping his hourglass. “You need to go to Honingen with your ogres, or it won’t work.”

He was studying her with some sort of detached insolence on his face that she did not like and it made her furious. His cryptic words didn’t help the situation either.

“What won’t work?!” She snapped. “Who are you?!”

He looked annoyed: “You are running out of time!”

As much as she hated this arrogant priest, she was aware that Firmin was well on the road with a great head start on her. If he got there first, the results could be terrible.

The man or boy, or whatever he was, was probably right.

“Just go.” He urged her calmly. “Everything else will fall into place later.”

The certainty in his voice spooked as well as angered her.

She asked him: “How do you know about this, priest? Why did you dress up as a spearman and why did you run away?”

The insolent man rolled his eyes. He was taller than Linbirg but not a tall man by any measure, nor muscled or showing any grace in his move.

“I am no priest, precisely, but do not fret.” He explained by raising more questions. “I only came to see how well you were doing, and I had time to spare. Unluckily, I can’t seem to see your old, hardy companion.”

He was referring to Agylwart.

“He died.” She told him crisply, leaving out the horrid truth of it.

“Oh.” He made, pursing his lips. “That is unfortunate, albeit not tragic. I am sure you will find ample folk on your way who would be obliged to tell you how to get to Honingen.”

“I know how to get to Honingen!” She lied.

She knew it was north and east, somewhere and there were big old roads leading there to and fro. Which exactly, though, she had know idea.

The man smiled ominously but did not pressure her on the matter.

He said: “Abilacht has been retaken from the rebels, so I would choose to avoid it if I where you. That is unless you fancy the sport of crushing another army. The steward, meanwhile, is trying to spread the word about your death as far and wide as possible. That should slow him.”

He turned to go before he added: “Oh, do pack some fresh clothes, if you would, and thick ones. There’s a strange winter been breaking out in the north. I have even heard men calling it demonic.”

“I’m not done with you.” She told him as he wanted to go.

She had determined his end as soon as the first words came out of him, but somehow he seemed to know that.

“I don’t intend to be crushed a second time, thank you.” He said softly but with a smirk.

She replied just as softly but threateningly: “You don’t get any say in the matter.”

To her surprise, he was completely unaffected: “You women talk so much when the day is long. And your castle is full of them, all those widows you made. They came seeking refuge here, and they are watching us now.”

That settled it. She couldn’t kill him, a priest, out here in broad daylight. He was a clever bastard, a cryptic, evil wretch. She would do well to see the back of him and forget they ever met.

When she went to gather clothes for the voyage, she understood what Firmin’s real plan had been. He had called the whole barony to Lionstone and had those who could not fight hole up there while the rest was to quash the ogre threat. He, meanwhile, was safe and far away, stealing Linbirg’s title in Honingen. He would end up looking like the prudent and legitimate ruler this way, while his son and heir looked like the valiant hero.

He had counted his chickens before they were hatched, though.

When Linbirg stepped from her chamber with a bundle of clothes, she was suddenly confronted with hundreds of anxious faces. These were the wives, the mothers and the children of Rigan’s host. This was the flipside to a coin with her dead foes on the other.

Had there been a way, a cleverer ploy, by which to spare all that bloodshed in the hills? It didn’t matter now. Linbirg could not change the past.

“What of our husbands?” They asked predictably. “What of our sons and our fathers?”

Hatred boiled up at the back of Linbirg’s throat. She had half a mind to have Mara squash them all. But the ogress wasn’t in the building. She didn’t fit into the building to begin with. When she opened her mouth, she was still wondering what she would say.

“Some escaped. They will find their way back to you. The rest are slain. I had no choice, believe me. I tried to reason with Rigan, but he was part of his father’s treacherous plot to steel my birth right! You must go home now and pray for them. Be sure that their deaths will not remain unavenged! Firmin ui Lôic will pay for what he did to you and yours, I can promise you.”

There was sobbing and crying. Gasping as well. They took it differently. Some broke down in sorrow, screaming, although the uncertainty certainly helped others cope better. They couldn’t know for sure their husband, their son or their father had been killed. They would only know these things later, and most of them would be affected.

For the nonce, it proved to be enough. Linbirg shouldered through them unmolested. When she was outside, she vowed to herself never to let so many strangers into her home ever again. She sensed there would be some loyalty issues she would have to sort out with Mara’s help after her return.

The ogress already awaited her, and in the forecastle their provisions for the voyage had already been laid out. The priest was gone and no one seemed to know where to, but Linbirg did not want to think about him.

They were on their way within the hour, off to Honingen. Her last command to Hobbles and the others remaining at Lionstone was to tear down the cat of Lôic and hoist her own banner, the ferns and river of Farnwart, which they had taken from Rigan’s banner bearer.

Perhaps she could have talked to him, she thought. Perhaps the great slaughter of the hills could have been avoided. But that would have meant to take a chance. And she couldn’t do that.

She wanted to stay alive.

-

The scene was set, two wooden bleachers opposite each other, draped in the colours of Honingen. In between them was an Imman field and the distinctly smaller tourney ground. Laura took up one side all by herself, surrounded by her breakfast, while the far side was made up of colourful tents, horse lines, as well as two trebuchets.

“What are those for?” Janna pointed in a nonchalant greet.

Whenever she saw Laura she somehow lost all impetus to be amiable.

Laura smiled: “They’re lobbing food at me, watch!”

She gave a hand signal and one of the trebuchets let loose, catapulting some flailing object toward Laura. Janna had to rub her eyes to believe them when she recognized that they were throwing people at her.

Laura lazily caught this one with her mouth, swallowed and grinned.

“Laura!”

“No?” Laura made. “These are criminals, Janna, evil scum, rapists and murderers and whatnot.”

Janna scoffed, furious: “Oh, yeah?! Who did the little girl rape, the one you just ate, huh? Spit her out, or I’ll jam my hand down your throat myself!”

“I’d like to see you try, sick pants!” Laura rebutted. “Besides, the girls are mostly from the brothel, they were running some sex slavery thing, super-duper evil.”

Janna didn’t believe it, even though part of her wanted to.

“Oh, really, how convenient!” She sneered. “And if I ask these people, they will corroborate your story, right?”

If it was a lie, Laura might have instructed them to play along, but the flicker on her pretty visage told Janna that she had not thought ahead that far. It was textbook Laura, really.

“Just stop it.” Janna added, wincing with pain from her belly.

Being hungry made it worse, and just now she was so starved that the thought of Laura forcefully puking out her half-digested victims brought her close to gagging.

“And what if I don’t?” Laura challenged her, unusually stubborn.

Janna needed something to reply with, but came up short. She recognized that their relationship or whatever it was had gotten increasingly ugly recently, much by Janna’s doing even though it was really Laura's fault.

“I don’t wanna fight.” She replied. “Can you please just do it...for me?”

Laura’s face softened a little and she bit her lip. She hadn’t expected this turn to diplomacy. Thousands of tiny ears were in attendance but none of them spoke English, so it was all they could do to act patiently. The Imman game that had been going on was halted, all the players blood- and mud-spattered, not daring to move.

“Okay.” Laura ultimately conceded. “But only if you stop pulling crap trying to kill Dari.”

“Fine.” Janna sighed.

‘For now.’

It was give and take, which was to be expected. At least Janna would get to have her breakfast in peace without having to stop any more murders.

“You know, Imman is really boring.” Laura said when Janna was settled down and the game was continuing. “Oh, and, by the way, Franka’s Immen Knights? Nothing to do with the game at all.”

Janna was enjoying bacon and bread and not paying much attention: “Did you bet any money?”

It seemed like something a queen, such as Laura fancied herself, might do.

One fierce man in green had the ball on the grass and was rushing the white team’s goal ere his feet were kicked out from under him and the cork ball went out of bounds. The field wasn’t even, marked by the imprints of Laura’s feet that had only hastily been repaired. The game was rather messy as a result of it, injured players sitting on the side-lines holding their wounds and bruises.

“Oh, that’s another thing.” Laura replied. “We’re kinda broke. Finnian took practically all the gold with him when he fucked off from Havena, the entire royal treasury. Franka and the other nobles are filthy rich, though, and basically some knights are millionaires. They have expensive tastes, though, like you wouldn’t believe how much armour costs, or those pretty horses.”

She thought of the knight at the inn in her dream, when she had been Bessa. Had he been a millionaire too?

“So, what’s the problem, just take the money from them.”

It seemed like a no-brainer, especially since Janna considered the riches of people like Franka Galahan to be inherited, undeserved and ill-gotten in the first place. Rich people were assholes, as a rule.

To her surprise, Laura nodded: “Yeah. Gonna levy a special tax or something. Hatchet is gonna figure it all out. We’ll be okay, so long as the food is enough to get us through the winter.”

“If they don’t pay, squeeze it out of them.” Janna advised ad hoc. “And if we run out we can always eat the rich, this time literally.”

Laura looked at her with concern: “Are you schizophrenic or something? Didn’t you just say...”

“Not to murder innocent people, yeah. But these fat cats aren’t innocent. They make a living by stealing from the poor, even to the point of starvation. Speaking of which, did you know that your little Franka has slaves?”

The game was going on but no one was cheering while the big girls were having their conversation. Franka must have known when her name was mentioned, but she couldn’t make sense of the rest.

“There’s no slavery in Albernia.” Laura replied at once. “But there is serfdom. The difference is a bit wishy-washy, but they’re not the same thing. There’s a degree of reciprocity involved, like for instance protection and property rights. In fact, they say the serf works for all, the knight fights for all and the priest p...”

Janna had already enough: “You don’t understand, they’re...she whips them!”

Laura rolled her eyes: “They’re all getting whipped! They beat the shit out of their kids when they don’t behave, seeing them as defunct adults. There’s child labour, no schools for most people, horrible diseases, and yeah, there’s massive inequality, corruption, injustice – you name it. Half the population of Albernia are serfs. What are you gonna do, upend their society with your dumbass, bourgeois ivory tower saviour complex, and hope that you did the right thing because you got a fuzzy feeling in your tummy?!”

Janna had to calm herself in the face of so much ignorance, displayed by one who certainly should know better.

“They’re black, Laura.” She said. “And she bought them off a slave ship. Can’t you see how fucking wrong that is?”

Laura didn’t look like she even cared: “Wait, are you saying we should treat them differently because of their skin colour? That would be racism. You seem to forget what year it is here. There’s no transatlantic slave trade, they don’t even have an Atlantic, far as we know. Besides, as far as bottom feeders go, the ones who tend to a countess’ needs are absolutely having a life that’s a billion times better than that of any peasant out in Andoain for example.”

Janna didn’t even really hear it, turning directly past Laura and to the countess of Honingen to rectify this wrong. In her haste, however, she moved forward onto a couple of wooden food carts with her legs.

There was a shout, cut short just when the crushing of wood started. She could feel a myriad of tiny things going bust under her weight.

“Fuck!” She cursed, moving off and looking down.

Where her left leg had been, all carts were broken and all the nicely made foodstuffs pressed flat. Among them was a carter who must have been brave or foolish to stand so close, because the others were waiting at a safe distance for their carts to be emptied.

When her leg was off him the injured man screamed and convulsed with pain.

“What did you do?” Laura asked, seeing.

Janna had trouble aligning her feelings. She felt genuinely sorry for crushing animals, but when it came to a lowly little man like this she suddenly found it hard to feel the right thing.

So, she had to play it.

“Oh no!” She gasped. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t see you! Shit, shit, shit, oh!”

The game was halted again and everyone was looking at her. Luckily, Laura’s body shielded her from half of them.

“Oh,” Laura made, smiling, “no big deal. It’s his fault for not standing where it’s safe.”

To make matters worse, she was switching to the local tongue.

The man below looked as though he had gotten run over by a truck. Given Janna’s weight, he was lucky – or perhaps unlucky – to be alive. Had she not noticed and remained on him even a little longer, or had she shifted on further and put more weight on him, she would have crushed him to death for sure.

“You’re a klutz, Janna.” Laura said. “Now go on and finish the job.”

“Fuck no!” Janna had already expected this.

It wasn’t the first time this had happened. Accidentally almost killing someone and Laura berating her to finish them off had been almost like an ongoing theme, even going back to their very first few interactions with the tiny people of Andergast.

She dug her fingers into the mud beneath the man and lifted him wholesale off the ground.

Laura was amused: “What are you gonna do with him, let him die in agony? Smushing him is kinder. Kill him with kindness, Janna!”

She laughed light-heartedly, as well she might.

“Shut your hole or I’ll kill you with kindness, bitch!” Janna snapped.

It came out unfiltered, sounding more hateful than she intended. It was her stupid temper again.

She didn’t remain to bother with it, but made to rush back to Galahan Palace with the still screaming man instead. He couldn’t be very close to death if he was still able to make so much noise, she reasoned, but it was better to bring him to Furio directly.

That was her thinking when she felt something hook around her right foot, just as she was going to move it forward. Before she knew it she was rushing towards the ground, just having time to break her fall with her hands.

The wet ground was soft, luckily, albeit clammy cold. When she turned to see what had tripped her she saw Laura, arms crossed and angry.

Janna felt rage boiling up at the back of her throat. The tiny man she had injured was probably dead now, uncaringly discarded by Laura as though his life had no value whatsoever. Janna couldn’t even see him any more.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?!” She hissed, discovering the man smeared against her right breast after she must have fallen on him.

He was well and truly dead now, irreversibly so.

Laura was looking livid and irrational: “You can’t run to Furio with this, his powers are too important for when the black sorcerer comes back! Fix your own fucking problems and fucking become normal again! You are exhausting!”

Strangely enough, she climbed to her feet and stormed off after that, straight into the landscape, just like that.

Janna wiped the flattened corpse off her T-shirt and stood there dumbfounded, much as the assembled Honingers must have been left wondering what was going on. Laura showed no signs of turning back either. Perhaps Janna had crossed a threshold. She possessed enough self-awareness to realize that she hadn’t treated her friend very well, but that had only been because Janna was sick and so incredibly annoyed with Laura’s evil.

Still, this sucked. She shouldn’t have lashed out. Worse yet, the poor tiny man she wanted to save was dead now, collateral damage in their fight.

Laura was still going. Being huge meant that getting away from each other was always awkward because they could still see each other for such a long time. Laura wasn’t even so much as looking back though, even after she departed from her northern route and started angrily marching east instead.

This gave Janna the opportunity to inflict some social progress on Honingen.

While sitting down in Laura’s seat she made sure that her expression was cocksure and none too friendly. Meanwhile, the back of her head was steeped with doubts. Now that the opportunity was unexpectedly real, her plans turned out to be Swiss cheese and half-baked cookies. She had no idea where to begin, or how.

But ruling shouldn’t be too hard, she thought. She could do this, effectively coming from the future after all.

“I must say, Imman is tedious enough as it is.” Franka Salva Galahan complained into the awkward quiet. “Having it halted every other moment does nothing to improve, and adding to our perils we are also short a queen! Will this game ever end?”

“It ends now.” Janna replied, waving her hand at the players to shoo them away like flies. “We have more important things to deal with.”

The countess smiled her old-woman’s smile: “And what of my wager then, the one I made with the queen? Fifteen thousand ducats it were, a hefty sum. Many others have wagered as well, amongst their peers.”

Janna shrugged: “Whatever side you bet on has just lost. And you’ll pay double because I say so. Do you have a problem with that, countess?”

A snide remark, anything unpleasant and Janna would pinch the lady from her seat and break every bone in that old, brittle body. The feeling that spread in her chest was amazing. Finally, she was using her huge, dominating power to do something good.

Unfortunately, Franka did not yet provide any grounds on which to squish her, and neither was there any protest from the other benches, other than a few irritairritated looks.

“Good.” Janna smiled. “Now, you will also release those black-skinned servants of yours, along with, let’s say, twelve years back pay for each of them. Do you have any problem with that?”

The grizzled, old countess might have been made of iron, but just as Janna was about to interpret her silence as an insult, she said: “With a heavy heart. They are such good, gleeful boys, and stronger than most too. I hope I have taught them well that they may succeed in whatever they so endeavour. Let Phex smile upon them, I pray.”

That was good enough to allow.

“Thirdly,” Janna continued, “you will take care of your city’s poor. Make sure everyone has enough to eat, is provided housing and can see a healer when they are sick, without having to pay for it.”

At that one, there finally was some stirring, but it came from the tall, old man on Franka’s arm who leaned over and whispered something to her.

“Ah-ah, no secrets here!” Janna smiled. “Say it out loud!”

The tall man rose, his bushy moustache wriggling: “I was just telling the countess that we should have these decrees written down lest we lose track of them, giant Janna!”

It was a good suggestion, which came unexpected. In her head, they were all her enemies. The old, willowy man was probably lying, but now that she was in the position to pop any of them at a whim, she recognized that to do so would be evil.

She could also hear Laura’s voice in her head, how one couldn’t just eradicate the elite, stomp on all the hierarchies and then expect everything to go dandy. Positive change needed to be productive rather than destructive, which was what Janna’s moratorium on murder was all about.

“Good.” She said again. “Also, striking children is now an offense against the law. He who strikes a child loses their hand, same with abusing animals. Slaughter is fine so long as there is no excessive suffering. A man shall not strike a woman either. If he does so, he is to be crushed. Furthermore you are not to be...”

She was looking for the word ‘racist' but there did not seem to be one yet. The logic of the language suggested what it should be, but the concept of race extended only to horse and dog breeds, not humans, far as she was aware.  

“You are not to be bigoted or prejudiced against foreigners, no matter from how far away they come, or however dark their skin.” She solved the issue.

Next up, she meant to introduce a social safety net, but that was where her unripe plans started to bite her back. She simply didn’t know how to make one, and without such knowledge anything she would say would carry as little obligation as a verse in the Bible. Only then she remembered that she had already done that, just a few moments prior, albeit not in great detail. It had to suffice for now.

“I will introduce further changes at a later date.” She concluded, biting her lip in anticipation of outrage, criticism, or at least questions.

There wasn’t so much as a murmur. All stared at her, some confused, some afraid. They did not really know her, except from those times when she had come over for food. And she hadn’t interacted much because of her illness. They knew only that she was huge and that she could do to them whatever she wanted. Somehow, that made it all taste bitter.

She waited, eating a few more carts of food and drinking tubs of mulled wine that had almost grown cold by now.

There was nothing.

“Find me the young woman who is called Dari and bring her to me.” She finally said.

While Laura was gone she might at least solve this little problem, but only after she had her fun with the tiny assassin. Perhaps would help her relieve some stress. She could see people look around, but it soon became apparent that there would be a wait.

In that case, Janna might have to keep her promise to Laura, albeit grudgingly.

“Will we move on?” She asked finally. “What’s to happen now, where is Hakan Praiford?”

The tall, old man with the moustache answered: “The inquisitor chose trial by combat and was found guilty by the gods. Unless someone removed him, I believe he is still one with the Imman field.”

“You think us Honingers barbarians!” Franka objected. “No, no, he was removed and is being buried, deep, I should imagine. He did not look as though he might ever stand again but for the protection of my people I have ordered special precautions be undertaken against necromancy.”

“Good.” Janna nodded. “Then, what is next?”

“The dragon.” Franka smiled. “Alas, Queen Laura has ordered us not to put adjacent the tedious and the fun. Therefore, oaths of fealty would be next, if only we had a queen to swear them to.”

Janna chewed her lip. She had grasped the opportunity and made some empty laws after her fashion, but she didn’t know whether it was wise to get involved with the fealty thing.

“The dragon then.” She determined, secretly eager to see it again herself.

It was a new species, one that had no pendant on Earth, unlike virtually everything else here. It had been nailed to a cart and still been alive the last time she had laid eyes on it. This time, however, it was dead.

“It was fed and watered as per my orders.” The countess explained. “It must have perished of its wounds.”  

A herald strut forward and proclaimed in a loudly ringing voice how a brave woodcutter had brought it down single-handedly, bringing the crowd to cheering. There was much oohing and aahing over the dead dragon even though to Janna it was hardly the size of gecko.

Its skin had started to rot and somehow scavengers had been at its eyes too, probably rats or mice. Janna ordered that the creature be dissected to learn more about its physiology. Ultimately, they could boil off the carryon and keep the bones as a trophy.

“I shall be present at the dissection.” She said, woefully aware that she wouldn’t be able to see as much as she might with the microscope at their ship.

“This is a small dragon, and it already got very close to the city!” Someone amongst the crowd of commoners shouted. “What if a big one comes, like the ones we saw in the sky, after the ground was shaking?!”

Someone else screamed: “What if it breathes fire!”

That was the other awkward thing. Even while arguably dysfunctional in their relationship, Janna and Laura were still united and bound together against the rest of this world.

“Well, you are in luck.” She smiled. “We will protect you.”

Janna hoped that it wouldn’t come to that, in truth. If she had to, she would kill a dragon, of course. If Signor Hatchet’s research was any good then a large one would be the size of a cat in Janna’s eyes. The thing was, it wouldn’t be a cat but a lizard with sharp teeth, claws, the ability to fly and maybe even breathe fire. That was something else.

“There is one now!” A young man from the crowd pointed out in utter terror, his finger going skyward.

Janna was on her feet at once, some more carts and food crunching under her boot as she tried her best to find the bloody thing while below her there were shrieks of terror.

But there was nothing to be seen.

“Ah, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!” The drunken laughter could be heard below, echoing in the shocked silence.

Janna’s guts were on fire with pain and her temper flared, her eyes staring down on the tiny rascal who had just made a fool of her. It took a lot of effort to restrain herself from just stepping down on him and crushing those next to him too.

She had sworn not to kill, not intentionally anyway and had already amended her goal to not killing people who weren’t evil. In hindsight, this prank didn’t warrant death.

The crowd disagreed, however. Before Janna could do anything, the offender was beaten by at least three men and he was wrestled forward to vivid demands of his execution.

Suddenly she was in a position where she had to make judgement, one over life and death. The people of Honingen certainly seemed to agree quickly that she should flatten him. But she couldn’t do that. With all the progressive fervour, it was easy to forget about the necessity of due process, a thing that was probably alien to this world, even though Laura would disagree, somehow equating their archaic ways with modern civilization. But that didn’t change how Janna felt.

She found herself hoping that the man would fight back and somehow end up hitting a woman or something like that. Any of the women in the crowd certainly showed no reservations about abusing him and spitting in his face at this point. But he was either too drunk or too battered already to do anything. It seemed as though nobody was doing what Janna really wanted them to do, least of all the commoners.

“Step on him!” They shouted, even while being in the process of lynching the man with their rage.

Insecure, Janna crouched and reached into the press which subsequently shrank away from her fingers lest to be mistaken and grabbed inadvertently. She picked up the man, by now barely conscious, and lowered him again at the feet of two Galahan guards.

He was just some young lad, she found, a fool, a jester, the class clown type without motley on. Every society had these and they were always annoying. Except for Steve, of course, who was a little bit like that.

“Take him away. Have someone else deal with him, but do it justly. Show him to a healer first.” She decreed.

She realized that they might whip him but thought it warranted in this instance. She had already caused the death of one person on this day, and a few lashes might actually improve this one’s character.

‘One step at a time.’

Back on her butt she began to eat the rest of her breakfast with increased speed. It was noon or past noon already, and ruling was more stressful than she would have imagined. How to enforce those laws she had made, she had no idea. And if truth be told, she had imagined making a ton more of them, only she couldn’t really remember which, just now.

The people were still complaining for some reason, so much so that the soldiers who kept them at bay now began to wrestle and push people around with their halberds. Why, was obvious. Janna and Laura had crushed people for much less, or without any reason at all. Letting the prankster live seemed unfair by comparison.

But positive change had to begin somewhere.

“I’m not crushing him for that!” She turned to the crowd in anger. “Now shut up about it!”

It was wrong to use her size and power to intimidate them, but it was all going so horribly wrong. Being good was hard when oneself had to do the deeds.

“So, we’ve dealt with the dragon. What next?”

“The tourney!” Shouts rang from many throats at once. “The tourney, the tourney!”

That notion seemed to distract them from all the other stuff, for which she was glad.

Janna noted that the male nobles on the benches were mostly old. The younger ones were probably getting ready at their tents to participate in the contest or were in fact hastily leaving to go there now.

She didn’t know if she really wanted to be part of that either. It seemed like a frivolity Laura might enjoy, not to mention that Janna didn’t really know enough of the participants to become invested in the endeavour.

“Not yet.” She determined. “I’d much rather do something else. Is there something, anything?”

Not really, she sensed, which was unfortunate.

After a few moments, the tall man with the moustache rose again: “It is customary at court to discuss the latest news. Now, the unfortunate state of the royal treasury has already been addressed, but I must also stress that the crown should raise new soldiers to consolidate its power. Finnian ni Bennain took many men with him. He took much of the gentler born folk with him too, and for all we know, they are now still with him. In some cases, new office holders must be appointed to fill the void that they are leaving behind.”

It was another thing that Laura was infinitely better equipped to deal with, having walked all over Albernia before. All Janna had seen before falling sick was a bit of Winhall, which wasn’t exactly much. Strangely, she wasn’t even really curious to see more of it, though that might have been just on account of her illness.

It still hurt, every second of every day, and the more she ate the more she could taste blood in her mouth again.

“The queen must be here for this!” A tall, twenty-something lady gowned in blue and white exclaimed anxiously. “This is not how it was supposed to be!”

The tall old man turned and waved his hand at her, nodding soothingly and motioning her to sit down. Something was happening there, something pre-arranged in secret. 

“I will hear this now.” Janna smiled. “I do not like plots and conspiracies.”

The tall man sighed: “It is no plot, merely a measure of presentation! The County of Bredenhag proves too large for Wulfric ui Riunad alone to rule, too feeble his renown down south in the Abagund! We therefore propose to split it and make a new county, to be ruled by he who has consolidated the nobility there for our ravishing Queen! Cullyn ui Niamad is this man’s name, and I am glad to make it known that the Abagund is no longer in rebellion!”

A cheer went up from the benches, although it was clear that most of them had already known beforehand. The cheer from the common folk was notably mute, as though the joy that this news brought extended only to half of them. Perhaps the places they talked about were just too far away from Honingen.

The tall man went on: “Not only that, but Cullyn ui Niamad has also raised a host and smashed the outlaw rebel Florian Vulture at Abilacht, taking him prisoner and bringing the town back into the fold! Albernia, by this virtue, is one again!”

That elicited an even greater cheer, up to and including standing ovations. The commoners, who were not sitting in the first place, still behaved differently.

“And where’s this Cullyn ui Niamad now?” Janna asked, largely unable to measure how significant this was.

She knew so little about Albernia that it could all be bullshit, and she’d be none the wiser. At least, within the span of minutes, the subject and general decorum had once again changed completely. She had need of some good news just now and the old man was smart to see it.

“My husband is being put in his armour for the joust!” The tall lady replied, pleading. “This wasn’t how we were supposed to break these news!”

Janna considered for a moment.

“You needn’t be afraid.” She finally said. “I detest war more than anything, and your husband is sure to have my thanks. I will put in a good word for him with Laura.”

She thought that this was probably alright. Laura had just created another new county, although really that had been Janna’s doing, and if that guy they named couldn’t deal with his county because it was too big then it should probably be split. Peace was the most important thing, both in- and externally.

To the tall guy with the moustache she said: “This is truly great news! Now that we have a truce with Nordmarken and Duke Hagrobald Guntwin of the Big River is a count in Albernia as well, we are finally at peace, and in a much better position should the ogres in the north come bother us!”

‘I’m good at this.’ She thought for a moment, before the tiny people’s reaction startled her.

It was clear from the onset that some of the nobles had known this too, especially amongst the foremost benches where the most important folk were seated. The rest was in shock, staring at her with wide open eyes and mouths as though she had just told them she was going to eat their children for supper.

Then, there was a boil. As quickly as the sentiment had swung a moment ago, like a wrecking ball with a vengeance it was now swinging back. Booing erupted from the huge crowd of commoners congregating mostly to Janna’s right, around and behind the bleachers on which Countess Franka was seated.

“No!” Men screamed from the top of their lungs, and then the women joined in too and the myriad of children as well.

Janna was taken aback entirely. It just did not compute.

She wanted to shout something back at them, but she didn’t know what to say, so deep was the state of her befuddlement over their outrage. And they were loud too. Franka’s mouth was moving, as was the old man’s and so many others’, but she couldn’t understand a word anyone was saying.

How could this be, she asked herself, how primitive and backwards were these people to react so badly to the best news they probably had in recent memory? She also realized that Laura had not broken this information to the general public, despite easily a thousand opportunities. Janna had stepped in it, and badly.

“I give you peace!” She finally roared over them. “I brokered it, the terms are final! You’ll have no more attacks from Nordmarken, no more fighting, dying, raping and looting, what’s not to like about this?!”

That seemed to enrage them only more. Quickly, the soldiers shielding the nobility from the crowd were in dire peril with city folk pushing, shoving and even outright hitting them either with bare hands or any other things they had available. She saw a man holding a small dog by the tail, swinging it at a halberdier’s iron helmet.

It was a measure of how angry they were, really. Already, the first nobles were gathering those they cared about and made off the benches in a hurry. Somewhere, a bell was ringing. A horn was blown, then trumpets. It was utter chaos.

“Stay where you are and stop it!” Janna screamed, but even with her temper flaring did she realize that crushing this would-be riot would turn her into the bad guy, no matter her reasons.

“Restore order!” She shouted at Franka Galahan even while the old lady was shouting for her knights.

From the back of the crowd a chant erupted, soon on every commoner’s lips: “We want war! We want war!”

They chanted it over and over again, and it wasn’t the only thing they wanted. Shouts rang out for Holy Theria and her jar as well, and for wine and a few other things. At least her threat seemed to have momentarily quenched the outbreak of violence.

It was inconceivable to her. Janna had effectively just decreed universal healthcare, unemployment benefits and a whole lot of other progressive things, yet all they seemed to want was war, religion and alcohol.

Knights pounded from the tents riding their huge tourney horses and brandishing long blunt lances either in plain wood or striped in the colours of their arms, riding to the rescue of their kin.

“Go!” Someone shouted in between the chants.

It was Franka Galahan, and this time Janna knew it was best to heed her. But before she could even get up, she saw one of the halberdiers whack some man in the jaw with the butt of his weapon, only then to have the weapon wrenched away from him and a dozen hands seizing him at once.

She wondered if the initially struck man had been the unbelievable monster who had used a puppy as a cudgel. If morals were to prevail, she ought to at least kill that man, but she could not identify him anymore. Everyone seemed to stream to her now, bar the children who were ushered out of the mob by their parents. The stolen halberd was turned around by three or four hands at once and the spear point at its top plunged down into death and mayhem. She saw the one guiding it, pushing it into the halberdier’s belly.

“No!” Janna shouted, desperately at first but then more forcefully. “No, no, no, no, no!”

She seized the murderer and somehow ended up with an additional three others between her fingertips while the halberd responsible for this mess fell down and thumped some woman over the head with the flat of its blade.

“Why do you keep being so backwards!” She screamed at them between her fingers so loud that it must have popped all their eardrums the way they wreathed.

There was no holding, no stopping and no denying it. She would kill them. It was a certainty.

“Stupid!” She snapped, angry with herself as much as them. “Stupid, stupid, stupid!”

The man who was most to blame she brought up and lowered him into her mouth. She wanted him to die slowly. Her tongue tasted his salty skin and the dryness of his clothes for a moment before she forced him back to her throat and down her gullet alive, kicking and screaming.

Then her eyes went down to the three helpers, or at least the three helpers she had gotten. It looked like the others were getting away scot-free.

‘As free as an Albernian, or as free as an Albernian ever got,’ she thought with respect to half the rural population being serfs.

She put them on the ground where the bunch smashed carts and flattened foodstuffs were. In retrospect, pancaking one funny prankster seemed preferable to this, but that was the wrong way of thinking. The funny man couldn’t have foreseen his stupid joke somehow contributing to this outcome, and besides, he was probably marginalised and poor or else he wouldn’t have comported himself in such a fashion.

The murderer arrived in her stomach kicking. Even through the pain she could feel him, or else the inflammation was making her more sensitive. She could actually feel him splash into the food and wine and gastric juices. Gastric juice itself was thin and clear, almost colourless, and composed of hydrochloric acid, potassium chloride and sodium chloride. She remembered having learned that once in some lecture. The walls of a stomach were covered in mucus too, which would be slimy to the touch if somehow he managed to touch it before his hands dissolved.

The infection had probably broken a part of that barrier, she reasoned, meaning that she should ingest alkaline things to fix it. Since her guts were hurting as well, the infection seemed to have spread to her intestines, messing with the microbiota there.

‘I need yoghurt.’ She realized, absurdly.

The possible solution to her problem coming to her like this, here, in this moment and under the circumstances, had to be described as Kafkaesque. But she couldn’t help it. Uncooked meat, she knew, would only serve to upsetting her tummy further, so eating the three in her hand would not do. Wine was bad too, only seemingly helping because of the narcotic effects of the alcohol.

As to the three she meant to kill, she decided to draw a line.

“Go.” She told them. “Run away and never let me see you again. Fuck off, or the next time we meet I’m gonna be on top of you before you can even begin to apologize to me.”

That was a lie. She would never have recognized their faces ever again. One had very orange hair, so maybe him, but the others were brown hair and expressionless eyes.

They jumped to their feet and ran, one step, two steps, three. No, letting them go was wrong.

On the fourth step, with one sweeping motion, they ran against the palm of Janna’s hand. It was reminding her cruelly how easy it was for her to dispose of them which was what it made so unfair and imbalanced in the first place. There simply wasn’t any sort of competition. She was a god among ants. Being this powerful wasn’t easy, but these guys had aided in the murder of a man who had only done his duty. The halberdier was being carried away alive, but the stab to his gut probably meant that some barber surgeon would kill him with infection or malpractice.

Awkwardly, she pressed her pinkie against the palm of her hand, lazily trapping them. Then her jeans-clad butt cheek came off the ground and they went under it, leaving them only a moment to realize their predicament before she came down and her butt rolled over them, crushing them flat against the ground. It did feel satisfying, given that it wasn’t murder but justice.

When she looked to her right again, the crowd was ducking away from her gaze. Some had tried to run away but the knights and more and more soldiers were preventing them.

It was all a bit much. She had to call a break, and somehow she needed to teach these people what yoghurt was and how to make it. That was the most important thing now.

-

The Landgraviate of Gratenstone made up the entire northern part of the Duchy of Nordmarken. It was very big, but not very urban, its capital of the same name a relatively poor city due to a monumentally oversized castle that Landgrave Griffax the Mad had built in his day and was crippling the city’s finances ever since. The Landgraviate was parted in the middle by the river Tommel, dividing it into the prosperous, fertile south, sometimes referred to as the granary of the empire, and a poor, destitute north that was mostly forest.

That was the extend of Laura’s knowledge, based on inquiries she had made after the peace treaty two days prior. She wanted to know her neighbour.

She was moving north-east from Honingen, beyond Ashenbridge and Wolfspass, soon following a broad, Bospharan imperial road through mostly empty fields with singular farmsteads here or there. Only few and free peasants were making a living here where the soils were great but oft as not war parties were coming through, probably taking everything that wasn’t nailed down. That was likely the reason why much of this fertile land was left uncultivated and why reeds were growing so close to many of the farms or why many of the farms were burned.

Laura threatened an old, lonely man out of his hut, three steps off the road, and asked him for the nearest Nordmarkener settlement. Janna was insufferable in her current state and she had to blow steam, and best if she could provoke a situation in which Janna’s stupid peace treaty would come in jeopardy.

The friendly, eerily unafraid fellow pointed her down the road where he said she would come onto the village of Vairningen, just north of the Tommel.

“The bridge will take ye over but it’ll cost ye, the bloody usurers.” He explained absentmindedly. “Back in the day of my youth girls could give the collector a quick kiss so they could cross for nothing, and us boys could give him flowers which he would give to the girls. Hmm, and the girls would take the flowers and put them in their hair while we walked the market together!”

Laura explained to him that she would not be needing a bridge but that she would teach the collectors a lesson for charging an old, struggling man such high tolls. He only waved off, however, saying that he hadn't been in Vairningen for twenty years before limping back into his hut as soon as she set him down again.

Somehow, she imagined the village as a little smaller than Aran, west down the Tommel on the Albernian side and now practically empty, which would mean that Vairningen would have between four and five hundred souls in it, give or take. The houses would be mostly timber, which was probably the biggest business there, next to fishery and some trade along the road, so long as there was no war.

She was wrong, and so it turned out had been the old man. Vairningen was a town, not a village, and had at least been prosperous at one point in its history. But there was a huge wooden bridge across the river.

On the north of the bridge, outside the ramparts, was a three-story-high trading post, likely connecting the prosperous south with the goods from the wild north and clearly making a good game by doing so. Some noble seat could be seen nearby atop a plateau overlooking the river, but not being so close as to command it. The wheels of two mills were plunging merrily in a little canal behind a dyke and from what Laura could soon see of the town there had been a wealth of activity going on before her arrival. She could even see temples, guildhalls and tiny corresponding markets, one for each trade that seemed to have its own little quarter.

The dwellings would have been enough for eight hundred souls easily, not counting the inns. But there had to be much travelling folk here too.

The idea of simply embarking on a rampage through the place got pushed into background by all this.

She was hard to miss though and so she could only conclude what the place was like in her absence only from what she deduced people had been doing prior to the ringing of bells. The walls, wooden palisades with earth and stone dykes, weren’t very high, three meters or so at the most, and looked somewhat neglected.

This was a trade place, a peaceful place in which lots of money was made, regardless of whether there was war with Albernia or not, because of the north-south dynamic. From what Laura had heard, Albernia never really stood a chance against Nordmarken, so this was logical even very close to the border. The people simply didn’t have to fear any Albernian raids.

Now, however, spears were being handed out, as well as clubs, axes and long knives. One man in three received a crossbow, and even women were armed in their desperation.

Whoever was outside the walls, near the bridge with the mills and the trading port was quickly ushered inside by blue-coloured guardsmen eager to seal the gates. A well-meaning parchment-pusher in rich dress and a ring of silvery hair on his head was meanwhile fidgeting with a chain at the thick wooden doors of the trading post.

It was a bit absurd to see it all, and a bit melancholy as well. This was what Laura had in mind for her kingdom, this kind of exciting activity, so rich and colourful and yet confined even to such a small space.  

The huge drape that hung from the overhanging roof of the trading post was half black and half white, each side showing one horn of a mountain goat in the opposite colour. On the town, respectively, was a blue and white banner, half wagon wheel, half gearwheel by the looks of it, white on blue under a black crossroads on white.

The gearwheel had to be on account of one of the mills, Laura thought. It was quite strange, even though one was clearly for grinding grain of the fields around the town, there were strange hammering noises coming from the other and it seemed to be somehow involved in the fulling and subsequent dying of cloth, as colourful dyes were as much in evidence.

Laura was amazed, much as though she had stumbled upon a lovely-made model landscape in somebody’s basement. The more she looked at, the less she wanted to destroy.

The walls and the gatehouse were filling up with fighting folk, the armed citizenry coming to defend what was theirs. They couldn’t really want to fight her, though, because they had to see that they would lose.

The fact that Laura couldn't own this place seemingly left only the option of flattening it, though. Unless…

She waved her hand and shouted: “I am Laura the Great, Queen of Albernia, and I have come to collect some taxes! Throw away your weapons or I will crush you flat you silly, little mites!”

At first, there was nothing, then it looked like someone was shouting back at her but she was too far away and that fascinating mill was hammering too loudly.

“I can’t hear you!” She laughed and shouted, a lightness in her belly that had been missing dearly before. “Throw away your weapons or I will first crush your bridge!”

She leaned a foot on it lightly, just enough to produce some creaking from the wood. They had driven whole trunks of trees into the riverbed, much like the romans had used to do in ancient days on Earth. On further inspection, the bridge looked a little old, so maybe it was originally from before Bospharan’s Fall.

In any event, if she stepped on it, that bridge would break like a bunch of twigs beneath her.

After some commotion on the wooden gatehouse the flag with the wheels was pulled down and a white one was hoisted up a moment later. Laura grinned.

A large bunny hop took her over the river. Her feet remained dry but the ground shook and the bridge started swinging somewhat dangerously. And just like that, she was practically on top of them all.

The walls cleared as quickly as they had filled. Not everyone dropped their arms but not a single crossbow loosed at her either. On the gatehouse, three men congregated, the one from the trading post, another corpulent, bearded fellow in blue and white velvets and hat, and one who was apparently the captain of guards, a red-nosed, lanky man in medieval uniform.

It was the fat man who addressed her, soon turning his hat in his fat hands: “Your Grace, I am Meinwerk Middlereacher, the guild master of this town! W-woo, w-we are willing to comply with your demands! How much g-gold d-do you require?”

The question was more perilous to her than any of their quarrels could have been, because if she was honest she had not the slightest idea. She had made a wager with Franka Salva Galahan on that boring Imman game, but ran off ere the game was concluded. If truth be told, the wager was only an attempt to make watching the game more engaging, lest she’d have to take part in it herself so as not to perish of boredom.

That had been fifteen thousand ducats, which she knew was an insane lot to any regular person. At the level of kingdoms, counties and baronies, though, she wasn’t so sure. She needed a way to transport the gold too.

She pointed at some fishing boats, idly resting on the bank of the river: “Fill two of those for me and maybe I will not wipe you and your town off the map. I’m not only taxing your treasury but also every individual currently within your ramparts. Make sure everyone pays their due. Also, make everyone come out of their hovels again, I have an itch to crush some Nordmarkers. And be quick about it, I don’t have all day. If you’re too slow, I’ll plough all of you under and flatten everything here.”

“A-as you wish, Your Grace!”

It was almost too easy, but then again, that was the point of being ninety meters tall. They were all at her disposal now and she was feeling reasonably merciful, provided they could give her enough gold and she wouldn’t get carried away in the process.

That extended only to those who behaved themselves, though, not to those she could see sneakily trying to leave the town through the northern gate.

She quickly took the three steps around the town and hunted them down: “No one is to go outside the words without my leave! Anyone I find outside gets trampled!”

So far, only a group of two men and one of one man and two women had made it out far enough as that they could no longer turn back in time. The rest rushed back inside as quickly as their feet would carry them, and the last of them cruelly closed the gate.

Laura shoved her foot forward and over the two running men, apprentices, judging by their youth and speed as well as their looks. She could feel them become one with the dirt beneath her foot when her weight settled. The three, perhaps a family with their young teen daughter, were beating and cursing at the shuttered gate.

She didn’t feel like bending to pick them up, shooing them away from cover instead by making to step on the gatehouse. The threat was enough, they scurried, and a moment later father and mother found themselves beneath the sole of her Chuck’s. She made sure to give them a good grind before stepping into the girl’s path with her other foot.

“There’s one chance to get out of this alive.” She smiled from above.

The girl had straw-blond hair and wasn’t ugly, just kind of scrawny and thin. Her young face looked up in fear, yet with the flicker of hope in her eyes.

Laura showed her the sole of her shoe that had claimed the lives of her parents a moment earlier: “You’ll just have to lick your mommy and daddy off my foot. Here, let me help you.”

She didn’t wait to see if there would be any licking, the idea a tad too icky by half for this moment. Instead, she just stepped down on the girl, reuniting her in body matter with her family, all resting in pulp, so to speak.

The town was circular, slightly oval, and very densely packed. Windows were so close to each other in places that it was possible to hand objects from one house to the next without ever going outside. Most were one or two stories high and half-timber, although there were a few stone houses as well. The markets were so crowded with carts and stalls that it was hard to see the ground, and blue garlands were hanging everywhere as though for some festivity.

For vessels to carry her gold, she took the two largest boats she could find, snapping the masts off and carrying them to the gatehouse. There, a new figure had joined the guild master and the other two, a tall, slender man with a feline face and a fox skin cloak that extended into a hood made from a fox’s head.

“You’re a Phex priest.” Laura pointed at once, smiling.

His voice was soft and he was well-spoken.

“Fara Praiolove is my name,” he bowed, “Your Grace.”

“Never saw someone dumb enough to offer themselves to me freely.” She told him. “So, what is it, think you can talk yourself out of this?”

He gave her a look, then determinedly shook his head: “I wish only to inquire if you mean to steal from the gods as well.”

It was a strange and stupid question, she thought, but maybe if she had been a believer, she might have thought differently about it.

She put down the boats behind the dykes: “Fill these with gold, however you do it is no concern of mine.”

The priest sauntered over to gaze down and look over the boats. Then, with a sad face, he turned back to her.

“When the all-seeing eye is watchful, not too much may be made of my temple.” He said. “But at night, when the torches flicker, why, then the walls are awash with yellow glow.”

She took that to mean that he had a lot of gold, which seemed logical for the Phex temple in a trade town like this. Why he was telling her about it remained incomprehensible.

“Give it here, your yellow glow.” She laughed. “And better pray that it is enough, or I’ll play fox in the henhouse with your town.”

She liked the priest, though, just at a human level. He had style.

“Greed is the way of Tasfarel.” He said in his soft voice. “It leads to destruction.”

This was probably the name of the arch demon opposite Phex. It was certainly interesting, if a little tedious.

“Destruction?” She laughed at him. “Oh yes, yours for instance! If you don’t stop preaching at me.”

With heavy hearts and pain in many a set of eyes, chests of gold were soon carried to Laura’s boats and either upended inside or placed into them whole. There was coin as well as jewellery, cups, plates, ornaments, even an old, decorated axe. Some people had considerably more gold than others, and still others even needed servants to help them carry their share. One old woman even meant to toss a living rooster in, but folk who knew better prevented her.

The guild master had a parchment in hand, and a long white feather, and the trade post man was holding the ink pot for him. Some people had brought tallies, wooden sticks that could be marked and then split down the middle to gain a primitive form of receipt, made unforgeable by the two pieces of wood being unique in their fit together.

It was a stupefying amount that soon accumulated, even though the guild master had to send everyone back several times to get more, an ever greater share of their accumulated riches.

The glitter was mesmerizing, especially when it caught the light of the winter sun breaking through the clouds. Somehow, seeing so much money stirred Laura’s loins, which felt bewildering but not necessarily unpleasant.

“Are you sure you aren’t the greedy ones?” She asked the priest with a hint at the accumulated wealth and a crying middle-aged woman having a hard time parting with her third share.

“She’s a widow.” The priest explained, somewhat detached. “Her husband made all that gold and left it to her when robbers killed him on the road. It is all she has left.”

At his words, the woman sunk to the ground in tears, stroking her chest of coin as though it was a dead child.

“Now she sits on it.” The priest went on, never looking at Laura. “She sees it, running through her fingers, everyday. Every coin she spends will never come back to her again, until one day the abyss of poverty looms, dark and deep.”

A cold shower ran down Laura’s back and she had to shake it off quickly.

“Let me end her misery then.”

No sooner was the tear-drenched box in the boat did Laura bend down, take the woman and pin her to the nearest second story wall at hand. Then she pushed, demonstrating that the wall was decidedly stronger than the woman’s body but that she was stronger than both.

That would not be the only woman crying on account of coin, however. The next one was younger and slightly plump, with two dirty-braids and rather strange clothing. She was garbed in things that were wide and faded blue and looked like they had belonged to a man before he tossed them away.

To top it off, she had a rainbow sash over her shoulder as well, and was wrestling a significantly stronger guardsman carrying her chest.

It all made sense after a brief explanation. The woman was a servant of Tsa, perhaps the goddess from the pantheon of the Twelve that Laura understood the least of. Tsa’s aspects were birth and rejuvenation and things like that, but neither sex nor marriage or family.

That didn’t seem to make any sense until it was pointed out that the same way in which Hesinde temples were often libraries and Rahya temples were winesinks or brothels, Tsa temples were orphanages. In the many war years, plenty of orphans must have come wandering down this road, and at Vairningen they had been taken in.

An orphanage, naturally, financed itself through donations, which were the contents of the wooden box and the reason why the young woman fought so fiercely.

Upon inspection, it proved all copper peppered with a handful of silver pieces, so Laura relieved the orphanage of the tax, gave them a box of gold and turned the guardsman into a tapestry under her sneaker.

It felt pretty good up until the Phex priest pissed all over it again: “Gold freely given and gratefully accepted is a blessing, but to do your good deeds with the wealth of others is as empty and hollow as a bag of wind.”

“Fuck off.” Laura argued back. “Gold is gold. It pays for clothes, food and firewood. Where it comes from matters little to the children.”

“It will when it runs out, no?” He raised a foxy brow. “If I depend upon the generosity of others, how can they be generous if I have profited from their misfortune?”

It was round and about enough from the smart-ass priest, Laura decided, and since he continued to piss over her wonderful moment she found it convenient that she had to empty her bladder just now.

She had him gagged and a hole dug, and a pole driven into it to which he was tied. It was inside the walls, which meant that this execution would leave Vairningen with a scent to remember her by.

She did not want to level the town, it was precious and sweet, not to mention that she could come back and steal more gold from them in the future. She hadn’t even touched their silver so far, but they would need something to rebuild and become prosperous again. Her ships were almost full. Almost.

“Aren’t you forgetting something, my fat friend?” She asked Meinwerk Middlereacher when he had told her that this was all their gold, turning his velvet hat in his hands again.

He mumbled an apology and quick as lightning parted with his jewelled rings and thick, heavy, golden chain of office.

As her parting gift, Laura stepped with one foot into the settlement, pulled down her pants and panties and squatted right over Fara Praiolove’s hole. It was strange with so many eyes, and the screams and shouts of terror and revulsion, but felt most relieving at the same time.

“Gold for gold.” She chuckled when her piss started to pool and submerge the Phex priest before spilling over and running off as small rivulets to violate the thresholds of the first homes.

She watched the priest squirm and fight and convulse, bubbles rising to the top with each of his inaudible screams. She found it strange that there hadn’t been a Praios priest in evidence, given Nordmarken’s reputation.

Drowning smartasses in urine was a very fitting punishment, she felt like.

It was quite a lot in the end, and the cobbled interior of the town did not drink it as the soil outside might have done. But that was now a problem for lesser creatures to figure out.

Before going back to Honingen, she resolved to take another boat and climb up to the castle above the river. Forcing tribute from a tiny town was one thing but doing it to some lord might carry more weight as far as violating diplomatic customs went, especially if she then killed that lord and wiped out his family. Of little consequence, respectively, were the peasants she chased out of their homes and squelched on the way over.

It was always strange how people believed wood or even stone houses would guard them from her; or ditches, brush, or prayer. It was also remarkable that many did not run very far, or in fact at all. They must have simply assumed to be too unimportant to warrant altering her stride for them. But that was where they were wrong.

Standing sticks with grapevines plastered the slope up to the castle, but now in winter they were not a particularly pretty sight. They felt funny underfoot, though.

The castle itself was rather small once Laura was up and looking down on it. It had stone walls and buildings with red tile roofs, a small orchard inside its walls at the north side where the slope was very steep and rocky. It looked well-built and maintained, however, the banners on the towers showing the exact same goat horns she had seen on the trading post down at Vairningen. And Whereas the outside was raw, grey stone, the insides where whitewashed, all but the central, round and unconnected bergfried which was blackened as if by a fierce, long-ago fire.

The thing was that there weren’t any defenders. No one was there. It took voices and something soft hitting her jeans leg to know what was up. The wall walks atop the walls were stone tunnels with the exact same tiles for roofing. That was why she couldn’t see any defenders.

Just as she began pondering how to address this inconvenience a young boy with a crossbow ran out from the wall and away from her into the yard.

“Hey there.” She greeted him, more perplexed than playful.

The youth froze and turned around, then threw away his weapon.

“Fuck this, I yield!” He called up to her and turned back again to running.

Laura didn’t want any loose ends, so she stepped lazily over the battlements and right onto him. She caught part of the roofed stone well under her foot in the process, collapsing the thing along with the soldier.

At once a deep voice was shouting from atop the walls: “She’s inside! Spears! Spears, boys!”

Then one man in armour emerged from down a flight of steps, never bothering to look up at her. All she could see were helmet and chain mail shoulders, as well as mail mittens grasping a billhook, a kind of spear that had cruel hooks on it to pull pull men out of their ranks or down from their saddles.

Then, two others emerged, the grand military might of three, but these other too were green boys who threw one scared look up her body and decided they’d rather stick to the walls and run left and right around the courtyard.

Laura stepped out again, letting the armoured man charge into thin air: “My lord, I am Laura the Great, Queen of Albernia, and I demand taxes. Also, I wish to see the rest of your kin. Show them to me or I will push your sorry castle off this ridge in a heartbeat.”

Her mouth watered at once at the thought of eating another little damsel although her body parts seemed at war over where the little thing should be going first.

The armoured man turned around, then upward: “Come down here, damn you!”

His face was barely visible between half helm and beard, tiny black bug eyes and puffed cheeks all she could define him by. He was short but broad-shouldered and did not carry any insignia.

His head lowered again and he ran to the gate, vanishing from her sight but she could hear him fidgeting with a wooden bar. The lack of other sounds seemed to suggest that he was the only defender willing to put up a fight.

“Talk to me, my lord, there is no point in fighting.”

He didn’t listen. Instead, the gate opened just enough for the lone fighter to push through, upon which he charged right at her again.

It was a good display of misplaced bravery and she found it annoying, mostly because she was going to kill him anyway, but only after taking his gold and women. But as things stood, he did not seem a talker, so she simply kicked her foot into the ground, smashing a barrage of rocks right at him, knocking him to the ground.

As he lay there, dazed, she moved the tip of her shoe over him, pinning him flat against the ground.

The rocks had smashed him up badly, though. His helmet had come flying off, he was bleeding from nose and mouth and one rock had even snapped off the tip of his spear. Laura hadn’t even known she was able to do that, rather like canon fire.

“My lord,” she insisted, “taxes! Give me your gold!”

He spat a mouth full of blood, spraying the air over his face in a red mist. Some of his teeth seemed to be missing.

“I’m no bloody lord, ah, you monster!” He gargled and groaned when she increased the pressure.

That was disappointing.

“Then where is he?! Who owns this castle, who else is here?”

He whined and winced with pain, never bothering with the question: “You’ve smashed me to pieces! Urgh, but just you wait, I will take you with me!”

From nowhere, there was a dirk, and he plunged into the white rubber rim of her Chuck, twisting savagely. She couldn’t even feel it, even though it was a great opportunity to punish him with more of her weight.

“Uncomfortable?” She sneered. “There’s a lot more where that’s coming from. If you don’t want to die in screaming agony I suggest you start answering my questions.”

He was starting to vex her terribly at this point. She was used to more cooperation.

“Go bugger yourself with a mountain peak, giantess!” He cursed, and died a moment later when she decided not to waste any more time on him.

It seemed that everything north of his belly button tried to force its way out through his mouth when she stepped down slowly. Something large got lodged in his throat, however, his heart perhaps, and it all came bursting out of his neck with a discreet little pop.

The two remaining boys were gone, and so Laura was left on her knees, rooting through the castle with her hands. It was always easiest to tear off or push through the roof and break apart walls piece by piece from the top, pulling as much rubble as possible outside so as to leave the interior untarnished.

She found a nice little chapel, sweetly decorated with a small window of coloured glass, but gold-wise there was only a sun on a stand to loot there, like a crucifix in some church. The other buildings where stables without horses and no fresh dung, not fuelling her hopes of catching some nobles after all.

She found an outbuilding containing kitchens, space to wash, store some food, make repairs, work stone and even a small smithy. It was all empty and deserted though. The armoury was dusty and there were cobwebs almost everywhere, as was the case with the wine cellar.

The blackened, round bergfried was a smaller version of the castle, rooms for quarter, water stores, food stores and another armoury. Near the top, Laura encountered the first bit of treasure, however, an iron-banded strongbox unusually heavy and clinging noisily upon a shake. Her fingers were too huge to pick up individual coins so she left it intact and put it in her third boat entirely.

The main building contained two halls, a larger one apparently in disuse and a smaller one where someone had been eating recently. There were no lavish decorations, just the usual Laura did not know to be of any particular value.

The lordly living quarters were a bit prettier and spacious, but contained little other than a few items of medieval clothes, both for a man and a woman. As was the case in the greater hall, cloth was draped over all the furniture.

It wasn’t until Laura dug into the last adjacent room that she finally found the treasury. Silver plates and candlesticks made up half the volume, whereas chests and some smaller leather sacks the rest. In the end, it filled only half her boat, and some sacks fell and tore when she wanted to take them. She accidently broke one of the chests as well, albeit one filled with coppers.

And still, there were no people, a circumstance abruptly changing at a boyish screech echoing over the norther wall when Laura was just pushing everything off the plateau.

An avalanche of rock and dust rolled down the steep slope, roughly two hundred paces above the ground. At mid level, Laura spied the glimpse of something jumping into cover, vanishing as quickly as it had appeared. Between two tumbling parts of wall she saw one of the boys from earlier as well, clinging to the ground for dear life.

It was no use, she saw immediately, she had to wait for the avalanche to be over and pray for any tinies to survive. They must have cleverly used a hidden postern gate to escape, their only error being in having done so belatedly. She would have to wait for the dust to settle but her huge body going down the rocky slope might have kicked off new dust and dirt, as well as dangerous rocks.

She therefore moved to the left, to another spot, and gingerly climbed down. The plateau was mostly stones, small and large, held together by clay and black earth. With her enormous weight on top, things started to loosen and a very big foundling, the size of Laura’s head, detached and rolled down to ground level, flattening everything in its wake.

All in all, it wasn’t hard to climb down, and now she had her prey trapped against the mountain, hiding by a little overhang that was now completely exposed to her.

Prey was a big word for this meagre catch, though. It was just one of the boys from earlier, no older than sixteen by the look of him.

He peered at her, whimpering, then turned his head: “Goddy! Goddy, where are you?!”

“Flattened by a rock, I think.” Laura replied, looking and not finding anything.

She took two small steps up to turn over some debris, ultimately digging out the missing defender, covered in dirt, bloodied and very obviously dead.

“Here he is. Guess that makes you the last man standing.”

The living boy pressed himself so hard against the overhang that it seemed he would like to submerge into it, but the cold, hard rock wouldn’t yield.

“Please don’t kill me!” He begged. “I’m unarmed, I couldn’t hurt you even if I wanted!”

Laura pitied him, really. She was so disappointed with the castle being empty, and now he was all she had. Somehow, that seemed to connect them in her mind, albeit probably just by wistful thinking.

“What gave you the impression I was defending myself?” She asked. “I came to steal your gold and flatten everything, and just now my plans are but a puny little shrimp away from completion.”

That shook him violently and he started to cry, the horrid, pathetic way in which rowdy male youths cried.

“You’re not highborn, per chance, are you?”

He shook his head, spit bubbling from his mouth.

“Didn’t think so, not with a haircut like that.”

His hair was dark brown, almost black, at least where the patches were thicker. He looked to have been sheered like lamb, or by a blind barber.

“Can you tell me where the lords of this castle are, or maybe some other people?”

“Milord’s off warring with the duke, and Sir too!” The boy said at once but then haltered for some reason and began to cry again. “I’m not supposed to tell, am I? The captain didn’t and you killed him, didn’t you?!”

He was losing his mind with fright, clearly.

“Yes, I crushed his insides out through his mouth. If you tell me where I can find some blue bloods to smash around here, who knows, maybe I’ll let you go.”

“But they’re all gone!” He shook his head. “Milady, she is with child and moved to Elenvina because her father by law is dying! They’ve sent off the cook, the builder, all of ‘em! Sir Rimbert’s wife, she’d be here but she’s a healer so she’s with milady. We was stable boys but there was no more horses so they put crossbows in our hands and made us stand on the wall if thieves come!”

She realized just how useless he really was, how little he had to do with anything. She inquired after names, just to be able recognize the aftermath of this once it unfolded.

The lady was the original heir inherit of this castle, a twenty-something Vea ‘the third’ Raxa Timerlain. Her husband was a noble of great talent and renown and of the same age, named Basin Ucuriad of Gallowood. Then there was a supposedly huge, red-haired household knight by the name of Rimbert Thomundson, and his wife, the skilled healer Shafiria who originally hailed from the Meadows Lovely in the Horasian Empire. Basin Ucuriad’s arms were two golden swords on black over four green acorns on grey whereas Rimbert’s were a silver and a red helmet over blue and white respectively. If Basin was related to the Conchobairs, the youth did not know.

“That’ll do.” Laura acknowledged, hoping that she would remember these names should they pop up again.

If they didn’t, she had just wasted her time, but it was never possible to know these things beforehand. Maybe she had seen the colours of Thomundson and Gallowood before at Andoain, but there had been so much heraldry present that it was impossible to say.

That was really the crux with it. Too much, too many. It was hard not to succumb to confusion.

“What’s to become of me now?” The boy asked timidly.

She didn’t really have a mind to kill him anymore.

“Go to Vairningen and report to the orphanage there, pledge your service to them. When your lord returns and asks where his castle went, tell him what happened. Also tell him that I was very disappointed not to have found him here. I would have loved to eat his little wife.”

That was good enough, she judged. In any event, the boy was not the point she was making. She would return by way of Vairningen, wanting to see people carrying her piss out of their town with a bucket chain that would dissolve into screaming madness upon her new approach.

“You belong to me now.” She planned to say in passing. “Make more money for me. When someone presumes to bother you, call on Honingen. I’ll come over and flatten anyone who contests my rule. Fail to do this, and I shall flatten you.”

Those where her thoughts when she made the ascent back to the top of the plateau where she had left her three boats full of gold. She had taken the boy without his consent, thinking that if she was going anyway, she might as well give him a lift.

“From here, you’re on your own.” She told him atop, setting him down.

She didn’t want the Vairningers see her being merciful and nice either. Perhaps she should do something to the boy, give him something to remember her by, like ripping out an arm out or something. But he already scurried, sprinting as fast as his little legs carried him after having paid only a heartbeat to gasp at the devastation where the castle had stood.

Laura felt mighty.

She was watching him go from above, thinking of how easily she could end his life. It brought a familiar tingling to her loins.

That was when a shadow passed over the boy, so swiftly that if Laura had blinked, she might have missed it. The winter sun was out, still. And something…something with wings, roughly the shape of an aircraft had passed over the tiny runner.

Now her head turned upwards in bewilderment.

-

Furio stared at the wooden box on his table in which he kept the Jar of Holy Theria. The black wizard had said that it worked, telling him to heal Janna with it, but there was no telling if he hadn’t somehow altered the sacred relic in some evil way.

After all, given the chance, Janna would rid the world of the black wizard in a heartbeat. Of that much, Furio was certain.

His mind was clouded. The Mibeltube Dari had given him along with the awful pipe weed was strong, and he was indulging too much in it. It helped him relax, and he needed that more than anything else just now.

After being attacked in the city, Franka Galahan had put him in her palace for his safety. That was what the old lady had said, anyway. She had pressed an Immen Knight and two squires on him too, but there was no doubt in his mind that they were really there to spy on him.

He needed to test the jar on some sick people, like the black sorcerer had suggested, but that would mean having to explain why it was still in his possession. The Honingers were still going mad looking for it, the last time he had heard. But whenever he left the palace, he was under guard, and his watchers surely took note of whom he met or entertained in his chambers.

Yesterday, that had been young Ardan Jumian and his stunning wife, the lady Devona. They had welcomed him awkwardly, wondered about the smell and asked if he had need of anything, harmless courtesies. Dari and her Mibeltube had been there before while Furio was still rattled from the walking dead, the black sorcerer and the demise of his colleague Ephraim O. Ilmenview who had foolishly gotten himself digested.

What at all he had discussed with Dari, he couldn’t really say anymore, just that the Alchemist Retoban the Blue had been hiding in the Seven Tulamidian Nights prior to seemingly vanishing into thin air. His things were in Furio’s possession now, neatly piled up by the window seat and yet to be searched for clues, with the man’s whereabouts unknown. The whores knew nothing, the streets knew nothing and none of the guards at the city gates had seen him, according to Dari.

It was the black sorcerer who was behind this, or Furio would be damned, likely for Retoban’s poisons. Dari had confided that she knew Retoban from Gareth where he had been one of the most accomplished alchemists far and wide and a master maker of magic glyphs. It did not take a lot of deducing to infer that she had either bought or stolen poisons from him, perhaps even Purple Haze, the most vicious, potent poison there was which only one alchemist among thousands knew how to make.

If there was any substance able to kill Janna and Laura, it had to be Purple Haze, which was why it was so important for Furio to test the holy jar before using it. He just didn’t know how to fool his watchers, and neither did he have a confidant he trusted sufficiently with this.

Dari had shown him her hidden throwing knives, intended to debilitate the black sorcerer should he reappear in her vicinity. Her throwing demonstration had left an unseemly nick in the door as well as almost killing Sir Sion Gramwick, Furio’s frog-faced protector, who had entered a heartbeat later to admit Ardan and Devona into the room.

Furio wasn’t sure if Dari had left after that, though. Indeed, he didn’t remember her leaving at all. The Mibeltube was very strong, and he felt he deserved this respite, but it was clouding his memory. He had healed his burned hand and drawn anti-magic circles wherever possible to prevent the black sorcerer from teleporting in or out of Galahan Palace, for he did not know if he would be ready to fight in this state.

He had heard once that the Transversalis Teleport spell required intricate knowledge of where one was going, which made a lot of sense if one did not fancy ending up stuck in some object that was already there. To go other places, the black wizard must have possessed something that allowed him vision, observing the unfolding of his evil plans before partaking and intervening at any moment he wished.

Furio was in the dark as to what those plans where, but he had to recognize that this combination made the foe a formidably powerful one. His eyes edged to his pipe again, as always when there were problems he couldn’t solve.

It wouldn’t do, though. Even Janna had noticed when he had been smoking it. She had gone but was back now, outside beyond the lake. If his ears weren’t tricking him, she was discussing milk with somebody, right until the word demons fell and made him prick up in his seat.

“No, no, there are very tiny demons, harmless demons, and they ferment the milk to make the thing I need,” she was saying.

Alarmed, he got up and moved to the window.

“No, we cannot just wait for the milk to spoil. That would spawn evil demons who would make me sicker.”

Furio did not quite believe his eyes, but what he saw on the bank of the lake appeared to be a congregation of the palace’s cooks, undercooks, spit-boys and other kitchen staff, all lined up and speaking to the enormous giantess.

“If we had existing material then we could make more of it and breed the good demons, but none of you know what I speak of.”

Furio was quite certain that there was no such thing as milk demons, so his alertness was probably misplaced. Just to be sure, he decided to consult the Compendium Of Known Lesser Demons And The Number Of Their Horns again, which was an excellent excuse for another pipe.

Outside, the conversation continued: “No, not buttermilk, although that’s a nice touch, I would like some. No, also not cream, for the hundredth time!”

It wasn’t whey either.

All manner of production processes and by-products involving milk were laid out and discussed, but none of it was what poor Janna was looking for. Curd seemed to strike close to the mark and she was very excited about that.

“Yes, almost like that, only a little lighter and not quite as sour!”

The final breakthrough did not come, however.

There was a rap at the door, so sudden and unexpected that Furio flinched and banged his knee into the table, spilling blackened pipe weed and tiny ambers all over his book. He wiped them off, hastily.

“Ugh, a moment!” He called, but the door opened anyway.

“Firewood for your hearth, wizard!” Sir Sion said roughly. “Don’t let the poor girl wait, she’s nowhere near strong as those moors we had!”

He was confused for a moment before remembering the black-skinned Forrest Islander that had built his fire before. He recalled thinking how fortunate it must have been to have skin that never looked sooty at such a task.

“Ah, ah, yes, thank you.” He nodded, although he forgot what for in the same instant.

The girl was small and thin but handled the stack of wood more ably than she looked. She had to be new as well. Furio didn’t recall ever seeing her before, although something about her seemed strangely familiar.

“My goodness!” She exclaimed after dropping her load at the hearth. “This fire has all but guttered out! Quick, milord, close the door before the warmth all flees out into the hallway!”

Her voice was Dari’s.

Sir Sion mumbled something about the smell but complied anyway, leaving them alone. Furio stared at the serving girl intently while she was fixing him with a most uncouth expression. Her hair was hidden under a head cloth, her lip broken at the corner of her mouth where someone seemed to have struck her recently, and she had a mole on her cheek that made her face distinctive enough to tell that he had never seen her before. But it still was Dari, somehow, wearing a disguise.

“Is ought amiss?” He asked.

It came out dry, as though he wanted to know why she wasn’t building his fire already, instead of asking after the fact that she wore servants’ garb.

She scoffed and whispered: “Phex, wizard, how much Mibeltube did you have?”

She must have thought that he still not recognized her, so she bent and brought her ankle out from under her dress. In certain circles, this could be seen as a very crude romantic advance, but in this instance any such interpretation was made impossible by the three throwing knives fastened by the drawstring of her shoe.

“I, uh…” He had to cough and clear his throat. “I know who you are. I meant to ask why you are dressed up like a servant?”

There was something vile in her facial expression, something asinine and hateful.

“Because Janna has gotten it into her head that I would serve her better as a smear, you dozy sorcerer.”

“Mh, mh,” He chewed on his tongue. “Why would Janna want you dead?”

“Because she’s a murderous cunt.” She whispered back at him. “Also, I may or may not have had a hand in Praiodan of Whiterock’s demise. I can’t even run away, because then Laura will hunt me down and crush me. You have to help me!”

“Well, uh…” It took him a moment to find the right words. “Uh, naturally! Yes, there is, uh…I mean…”

She interrupted him: “Have you been here, smoking this entire time? Do you not know what happened? Do you not know what’s about to happen?”

He straightened himself in his seat, objecting: “I have been sitting here studying, learning more about the ways of our foe so that we might be prepared the next time he ventures into our presence. I do not believe throwing knives alone will stop him!”

He was proud to have remembered that much at least, which made him reflect upon what woeful state he was in.

She scoffed: “You can forget about that one for now. Laura is about to turn Honingen into a second Winhall.”

His heart caught in his throat even before realizing what was really going on.

“Uh…is she…?” He heard himself say.

“Well, not yet?” Dari told him with wide eyes. “She fought with Janna again and ran away, but when she comes back, she will see that rebels have taken over the city. Take a good guess what she will do then, wizard.”

He had to think for a moment: “This is terrible! We must stop it at once! Why…how in the world could you let that happen?”

“I’m but one girl.” She replied. “And I’m hiding from Janna. She has everyone looking for me but I think the city has them distracted enough. Janna didn’t even care about what she had done, she just whipped everybody up into a frenzy and then she just walked away!”

“Ah, yes, yes.” Furio stroked his beard, thinking. “She is unwell. It is her sickness. Now that we speak of it, there is something I need you to do for me.”

She fell in once again: “The Jar of Holy Theria?”

It startled him so much the almost fell out of his chair. It was inexplicable to him how she knew, but if she did then maybe others did too.

She cocked her head: “Phex, that Mibeltube kicks like a Tralloper, huh? You told me all about it yesterday! I didn’t believe you at first, but then I tried it, the jar, I mean.”

His mouth was dry and he had to swallow first: “On whom?”

Just to check, he lifted the box up, finding it far too light. It made him feel stupid to think that he had sat here wondering about it without it even being in the room.

She pursed her lips: “Four cases of the Bloody Diffar, and a cripple. It cannot regrow legs, sad to say, but when I went for the others this morning, I had trouble finding them.”

“And they all lived?”

“Aye,” she nodded, “well, four out of five. One of the Diffar cases believed he was blessed by the gods and thought himself invincible. To spare you the tedium, his exploits put him in amongst those who were catapulted into Laura’s belly this morning, although I cannot say whether he was thrown. Janna interfered, you see.”

Furio nodded. It was good news even though she had entirely turned the tables on him, startling him like some fool.

“Then I require you to use it.” He said. “Heal Janna. Perhaps her gratitude would even save your life without any of my doing?”

She crossed her arms before her chest. Dari was an exceptionally small-breasted woman, as scrawny little women such as she often were. It was only by virtue of her feline immaculacy that she could claim beauty, although not quite to the degree of Devona Fenwasian who looked like Rahya herself had made her.

Dari’s tone, however, was venom: “It might. Perhaps it might help even more if I brought her the Novadi yoghurt we found at the Seven Tulamidian Nights. It is still there, far as I know. It is what she is looking for with those pot boys over there outside your window. What if it doesn’t, though. Can you scrape me from her arse and breathe life into me again, wizard?”

Furio’s tongue remembered the taste of the Novadi treat as his ears heard the word, sweet and yet somehow lightly sour. Like solid cream it looked, and yet ironically felt much lighter than cream, once ingested. Nuts went well with it, or fruit dried and fresh, and honey most of all.

Novadi delicacies seemed to fall in and out of favour with the Horasian aristocracy every couple of years, but Furio hadn’t had a brush with it since joining the army.

“I…I had best take care of this matter myself.” He conceded. “Do you have the jar?”

“I have hidden it.” She replied. “Besides, are you sure we cannot just…”

“Let her die?” He finished for her.

There was a pain in her eyes, deep, like some scar upon her soul. It felt bad to crush her hopes.

“Then there would still be Laura to contend with.” He went on. “And I have orders.”

Her face darkened “The alliance with Horas. How is that going? Hatchet says your homeland is drowning in rebellion worse than Albernia ever was. Counts, Dukes and Kings are marching on your emperor’s palaces, laying siege to cities. Armies of sellswords are setting fire to the land and everyday more soldiers turn their coats and go brigand as your throne lacks the coin for their pay. What do you think happens when you toss the might of Nordmarken into that stew, wizard? I have seen their army. Your sorry little empire does not stand a chance.”

She was from Gareth, he understood, and as such harboured great distaste for Horasians, so her ignorant behaviour was excusable. He didn’t blame her. What she told him was shocking and it filled him up with anguish, but it wouldn’t do to let it show. He needed to be wise now, and trustworthy.

“There is still General Scalia,” he offered as a rebuttal, “putting to sea from Havena, as it were. And if that is truly not enough, as you suggest, then Laura and Janna might be the last chance our empire has left.”

He needed to intervene somehow, steer things in the right direction. The question of ‘to what end’ bugged him, however, and he could not find a good answer right away. What was so good about the Horasian Empire that should warrant its continuous existence. He needed to think on that and smoke a pipe or two to calm his nerves.

She turned for the door: “You will speak to her on my behalf then?”

He gave a nod: “I will do my best to talk her out of it, which should go down as smooth as a bowl of yoghurt.”

“You must ask Florian Vulture for it then.” She replied. “And do it before Laura ploughs everything under. I have heard they are hiding inside the houses, thinking she would sooner treat with them rather than to destroy her precious city. They do not know her as well as I do, I am afraid.”

“Aye.” He nodded one last time. “But perhaps I know an easier way.”

-

“I creep in amongst the graves and crypts! I love the dead. the living make me sick! Profit and greed, bleeding the world dry! You laugh at me, but when you die...you will be mine.”

‘Bent but not broken.’ Andarion told himself. ‘Battered but alive.’

He stared through the meshes of the thick fishing net, seeing the shit-skinned jester prance and dance around, shredding the strings of his lute in a most grotesque spectacle. The Prince hated that man, mostly because of his blue and white motley, the colours of Nostria.

Just now, he had stopped singing and the violence in his lute-playing subsided. It carried on more softly, calmer, hinting that another horrid verse would ultimately erupt.

“Does that blistering fool ever stop singing?!” A fellow prisoner cursed under his breath.

They were rubbing together at the shoulders and hips, all four of them, the net that held them swaying with Ugluk’s stride. They were her food. She kept them almost solely for the purpose of eating, which she preferred raw, bloody and unseasoned. It was customary to hang meat after the kill, salt it, finer its taste with herbs, spices or perhaps smoke. Ugluk would have none of that. She did not even possess enough heart to kill what she ate, and she ate one of the men from her net every evening.

There had been six of them when Andarion first awoke in her clutches.

Suddenly the lute playing picked up again, and the mad fool’s voice filled the air: “We love the dead! Dead eyes can’t disguise! We love the dead! No more lies...or deceit! The living betrayed me! I only…trust the dead! In your tomb now, my vengeance spreads!”

This time, the music did not die down afterwards, but picked up and went on higher.

“We love the dead! We trust the dead! We are the dead! When will you die too?”

‘When will I die too?’ The Prince wondered.

Would it be four days hence, or earlier? If Ugluk decided to eat him, there was very little he might do. He had awoken almost naked and unarmed, trapped in the net among stinking peasants. Naturally, he had informed his captor that, given his station, he was to be afforded the right of ransom. Shamefully, she had not heeded his request but reached into the net to pull him out. It was only because Andarion’s fellow prisoners were even more malnourished than he was that he was able to squirm away and make her blindly grab one of the others in his stead.

That man, of course, had protested as much as he could, right to the point when she had bitten his head off and made a meal of him. Andarion suspected she did not speak the common tongue very well.

“Go time!” She would sometimes bark after a rest when she picked up the net, flung it carelessly onto her back along with her other belongings and continued marching with the general ogre army.

Andarion had no idea where they were going. He didn’t even know where he was. He had been stumbling through the woods after that even infinitely larger beast had stepped on him and crushed his men like roaches. At that time, he had been in Nostria, his father’s kingdom and his ancestral homeland. After that, he wasn’t so certain. There was much he did not recall.

He tried asking the other men in the net whether he had accidentally crossed into Andergast, but they wouldn’t answer. Speaking could mean death between Ugluk’s teeth. If he had unwittingly wandered into Andergast, it was bad. If the ogres had crossed into Nostria, it was even worse.

“Drinker, drinker!” Ugluk oinked suddenly, and all her captives knew what that meant.

They were flung forward until all of them were suddenly plunged into the cold wet of some forest lake or river. Andarion’s head was under water immediately, and he pushed the liquid into his belly as best he could. It wasn’t often that Ugluk watered them, and food he had not seen from her thus far.

They were like livestock, only worse. Other ogresses also carried humans for food, but from what Andarion had seen through his hempen prison walls they went about it very differently. The ogre army seemed to be marching in great haste, so humans were not allowed to walk on their own, necessitating the giant females to carry their living fodder. Some carried men and women cumbersomely like babes in their arms, whereas others bound them with ropes to a long branch that they carried over their shoulders, treating the living human beings like hams, sausages or game birds. It was bizarre to see and stupefying to the imagination, but it was happening right before Andarion’s eyes.

The men in the net wheezed and coughed when they were jerked out of the water, just as abruptly as they had went in. Water was a double-edged blade in that it was necessary to stay alive but being drenched in it made the following hours sheer torture. It was very cold where they were, marching through some deep woods, and it had already snowed at least once, although it had melted again. Andarion had broken one of his teeth when he had not been able to find anything but tree bark to eat, and just now with his teeth chattering from the cold it hurt abominably.

Word was passed down from ahead that they would take a rest and Ugluk went in search for a quieter place to sit down. The lake was barely more than a dozen paces by half as much again and covered in fallen leaves so much that one could hardly see it. Just now it was busy, however, with ogresses watering their livestock and outlaws their scrawny little horses respectively.

That the ogres allowed them in their midst could only be explained by their both being evil. Birds of a feather flocked together, the saying went, and there seemed to be no better explanation.

“Breather!” Ugluk declared when she hunkered down on a fallen tree much too flimsy not to break beneath her.

She was different to most other ogresses that Andarion had been able to see in so far as that she only ever said singular words, if anything at all. She appeared to have no acquaintances whereas others tended to bunch up in groups of kin or companionship. Furthermore was she short and squat for her kind, and her face was ordained with holes in which she had pushed bones as well as ornamented copper rings that were so old that they were turning green with patina. This was most unusual and frightening. Her black hair was braided into queer sausages that hugged her head in a most unfeminine manner, fixed in place, horridly, by having threaded the end of the strands through human skulls.

The wood beneath her rump groaned and screamed while she lowered herself until the stem gave way in its entirety. She did not seem to care. Andarion used the brief respite to wring the water from his golden hair and what scant, torn clothing he still had on him, which wasn’t much to speak of. He certainly did not look princely in this state. If there wasn’t some miracle occurring soon, he would share the fate of his worthless compatriots as food for the giant idiot.

Andarion prayed in his head as he did often now but the only thing that seemed to accomplish was to bring Ugluk’s feet upon them.

“Rub!”

It was a demeaning duty reserved for lesser men. Andarion did not act right away and the other men in the net seemed unsure either. This angered Ugluk.

“Rub!” She growled again. “Feet hurt!”

Her voice was as raspy as a smith’s but she wasn’t the only one complaining.  

A young member from one group of ogrish kinswomen nearby was wondering aloud: “Where are we going? I’ve seen nothing but trees for days!”

“Hush!” An older beast shut her up immediately. “You know how the queen is! Don’t make her lob your head off!”

There was great fear in her voice, which was strange for such a large creature.

“Rub!” Ugluk pushed her feet into them with more fervour.

It was made difficult by the obnoxious stupidity of their captor who was pinning their arms and hands with her weight. Nevertheless did they do their best kneading and rubbing the ogresses skin and flesh, even Andarion.

Ugluk was not to be angered, was the simple truth of it. He who angered her got eaten next, and her jaws knew no mercy.

“Hmm!” She finally made, which must have meant that it was good.

“Inspection!” The word came down the line then and all of a sudden, the hoofs of horses pounded the ground.

Andarion had to crane his neck beneath Ugluk’s muddy toes to see what was going on. Outlaws had appeared, or else the soulless mercenaries. The distinctions were hard to make among all these monsters.

A man pulled on the reins of his diminutive horse: “We will have a look at all your slaves! Put them out for us to see!”

There were two of them, Andarion could see now, wearing faded blacks and riding clothes but weapons well above their station. They had an almost naked girl in tow whom one of them yanked gracelessly from the saddle.

They started walking around and having a look at the prisoners, and Andarion understood only then that ‘slave’ had meant him as well, as though he were some shit-skinned savage on a Stoerrebrandt plantation.

“Me.” The man next to him started whispering frantically. “Pick me. Pick me, please.”

Ugluk grunted and dealt him a shove that sent him sprawling into the mud. Upon this, the man seemed to lose all sense.

“Pick me!” He cried out. “Pick me to go with you!”

Many heads turned, including those of the outlaws. One had the face of a prisoner with flaxen hair between his fingers and appeared to be counting teeth. They came over like wolves who had found a lamb in the woods, dragging the girl with them by her arm.

“Pick him, he says, eh?” One sneered. “And what for, you peasant?”

They behaved themselves as though they were lords, these two murderous blaggards. One kicked the man first in the stomach and then full in the face.

He replied them with blood in his mouth: “I can fight! I can kill too, you’ll see! I can be an outlaw, like you! I’ll do anything you tell me to do!”

Only then did Andarion grasp the urgency of the situation. This was his miracle, the very one he had been praying for, the last time just a few moments ago. The gods finally answered him after all this time.

“You’re scrawnier than a stick!” The one outlaw laughed, even while the other was looking at the man. “Shut your yap and be quiet, ogre food.”

Andarion was wrestling with himself to open his mouth and speak, but he couldn’t. If this was a test of bravery, the gods were truly cruel. He wasn’t as scrawny as the others, but little more than skin and bone at this point anyhow. This resolved itself when the outlaws took note of him all on their own accord.

“Woa!” One exclaimed. “Look ‘ere at this tall fucker!”

Andarion was taller than both of them indeed and standing close they had to look up to him.

“Good one.” The other nodded. “Sly will like this one, I already know. Open your mouth and show us your teeth, boy.”

It was demeaning, and the Prince wondered what sin he had committed that the gods would punish him like this, but if it meant his salvation then he would do as they said.

“Smells like ogre feet, but it’ll do.” The teeth-counting one seemed very pleased. “Come with us now and you’ll not be food tonight.”

Andarion’s chest heaved so exalted was he, but just as he wanted to step forward he felt Ugluk’s fingers curling around his chest.

“Mine!” The ogress complained, hissing.

The other outlaw wrestled forth the girl and tossed her down: “We’ll trade you for this one. Tastes much the same, I can promise you.”

Then he laughed.

But Ugluk did not let go of Andarion, instead making known her displeasure with the girl: “Scrawny!”

The first outlaw sighed: “Bugger your arse with her if you want, Ugluk! It’s naught to us. We’re taking the boy on Varg’s orders. Don’t like it, take it up with her!”

That, finally, made Ugluk relent.

Andarion had not seen the ogre queen thus far, but by the way the other ogresses mentioned her name she had to be an even worse monster than they were.

“You think she has copper in her cunt too?” One outlaw jested to the other as they were leaving. “Saw a sailor once in Thorwal, had him an earring like hers made. Lost the ear within a week, all green and bloated.”

They did not allow Andarion to ride, as was to be expected if they saw him as a prospect. Nevertheless was he as glad as he could be. He had to keep his mouth shut now, earn their trust and a horse, and ride away as soon as they stopped looking. Outlaws were rude, godless and cursed a lot. He would do well to remember that for the time being. Sounding like a nobleman, much less a prince, would not do.

As for the girl that replaced him, she was probably just some peasant. The gods had determined that she should take his place as Ugluk’s supper. Better she than him.

First doubts about the outlaw’s purpose for him came when they brought him away from the column to a secluded clearing in the trees before an enormously tall beast that was clad head to toe in cobbled-together armour. Some wretched smith had crudely melted and beaten entire ringmail shirts into sheets of metal to serve as scales and there were large crude bronze plates about her body as well, all wrought savagely. A long, thick shaft of stoneoak wood was in her hand from the end of which hung thick chains and a flail head such as could have threshed an entire gatehouse.

This had to be the ogre queen, he thought, come to take his oath of allegiance. He threw himself to his knees, which he wouldn’t have done as a Prince, but as an outlaw, a simple lowly soldier among ogre ranks, he had to act as such. To know one’s station was the most fundamental thing to ask of any man, after all, and things that could not be helped had to be endured.

“Who in the Netherhells is he kneeling for?” One of the outlaws on horseback asked while the other started laughing profusely.

A smaller outlaw stepped before the Prince, older and balding and with small eyes that were full of Phexish gleam.

“Weepke, I think.” This new one said sceptically. “Not a very promising start, though I like the looks of him. Stand up.”

He lent Andarion a hand, which felt strange taking. There was honesty in his grip, though, the Prince found, and a certain reassurance.

Lined up at the armoured monstrosity’s feet were three other prisoners, all roughly of Andarion’s age, taller than average and with varying degrees of yellow hair. He hoped that the outlaw leader, when he met him, wouldn’t be a buggerer of boys with a favour for that hair colour. It was hard to think of any other reason, though, which was disheartening.

Andarion was steered by the small man to stand in line with the others, upon which the outlaw took a few steps back and addressed the two riders first: “Eh, you bugger off now. And tell the others to stop looking, we’ll choose one from these four.”

He waited until the two had taken their leave before addressing his subjects: “It is a pleasure to meet you all. I am Sly.”

It took Andarion a moment to realize that this was the man’s name, making him the leader of this dastardly bunch of criminals. The Prince realized also that if he wanted to live, he had to emerge victorious in this test and be Sly’s chosen one, which shouldn’t be too hard given who he was up against, all commoners by the looks of them.

One committed a fatal error right at the start: “I am…”

“I do not care who you are.” The outlaw leader cut him off coldly. “We need you to become someone else. Now, this will be hard for you to understand, I already know…”

“I understand!” The dullard threw back at him. “You need one of us to become an outlaw, like you! I’m your man, right here, I’ve killed, raped, robbed, the whole…”

The man who called himself Sly smiled and raised a hand to shut him up: “You misapprehend the situation, I’m afraid. No, I’m not looking to recruit you. You’ve all been chosen because you resemble a certain dead man, one who would be much more useful to us if he were alive. We need you to become that man. Is any of you a mummer, per chance?”

Silence answered him, even though it would probably have been wise to speak up as the Prince noted too late.

“Too bad.” The outlaw went on smiling. “Now, who of you would like to become the King of Nostria?”

The world started spinning before Andarion’s eyes. He could taste vomit. Before he knew it, he was on the ground, his chest heaving and his legs like water.

“Heh!” The outlaw cackled in amusement. “Don’t be afraid! You won’t have to do any talking, just sit respectably in the saddle and vaguely look the part. Who of you can ride?”

The Prince looked to the other three as they gave him side glances with their peasant eyes as they timidly raised their hands into the air. It was only when the outlaw spoke again that Andarion realized he hadn’t raised his own, even though like as not he was the best horseman in Nostria.

“Eh, half the lords already!” Sly quipped happily, albeit that it seemed he did not put too much trust in that assertion. “Well then, just in case you have to utter a word or two, let’s hear you say something lordly, one after the other.”

Andarion hated them all with every fibre of his body. He wanted to throttle them until they were dead, or better yet have them thrown in the dungeons and let them rot there close to starvation first. It came spewing out of his mouth along with a rain of spittle.

“I’ll have your head on a spike for this, you wretched bastard!” He screamed, pushing himself up again from a knee. “I’ll put it there myself!”

He took a shaking step forward which spurred to motion the armoured enormity above. Her foot came out of nowhere and slammed into him, pushing him back down into the dirt as though he were some misbehaved puppy.

“Weepke.” Sly seemed to reprimand her and the foot lifted off Andarion’s back. “It would seem we have quite the natural in our midst. That’s a hard one to supersede but give it a go, boys!”

Andarion could only stare at him. It didn’t make any sense.

“That don’t make sense!” Another prospect noted the same thing, speaking as though he had mud in his mouth while doing so. “We don’t look nothing like the king! He was already king for many a year when I was born, so he must be a old man now!”

“Quite right, quite right.” The outlaw sighed in reply. “Except, it isn’t that King we need you to become. When the Albernians came and beheaded the old king before flinging his body against the walls of his own castle, he left the kingdom to his firstborn son of the same name as himself. They were both called Andarion, lest you lot forget who king is. Unfortunately for us, that one got himself flattened by those walking enormities we do not like to talk about within ogre hearing. And it is that one we need you to become.”

He threw a look up at the armoured monstrosity who grunted angrily in reply.

Another peasant raised his hand: “But what about the second son, didn’t old King Andarion have two sons? I heard it was so, but he wasn’t a cunt, so the King didn't like him.”

“Just so,” the outlaw continued patiently, “he a was a learned man and seems to have realized how hopeless the situation was. In his wisdom, he flung himself off a tower, both in broad daylight and rather publicly. The death of the firstborn son is all but unknown, however. Except to us, of course. We found him and his men all squished to brine in the woods. We couldn’t even find his body, only his princely crown. So, you see our chance here.”

Andarion’s world started spinning all over again, this time so bad that he wanted to scream even though much as he tried not a single sound was coming out of him.

“Why did Albernia kill our King?!” Another man shouted in his stead, broken down to his knees and his hands held as though he were in prayer.

Sly replied dismissively: “You didn’t know? It was some notion about revenge that need not concern you. Look, I know this is ill news if you are a Nostrian but take my advice that you had best save your grief for a little later. This is not the time.”

“My father is dead?!” Andarion finally won the battle against himself through teeth clenched and with tears in his eyes.

If truth be told, that wasn’t the really tragic part of the story, and neither was the death of his brother. Andarion had always known that he was to be a much better king than either of them ever could be. He was chosen by the gods, and also much more handsome than anybody. But the manner of his father’s death was an insult such as could not go unpunished, provided what this little blaggard told him was true.

“Your father?” The outlaw asked, dimwittedly as befit such as him. “Oh, ha, ha, very good, heh, heh, leading by example, I see! You others better have at it, or this one is stealing the prize!”

“I am the man you seek!” The man who was farthest away from the Prince stepped forward. “I am the King, and anyone says I’m not is a usurper!”

“Oh, ho, ho!” The wretched outlaw made. “What do you say to that?”

The young man had the right hair and eye colour but was otherwise a little shorter than Andarion and scrawny as a stick. He was looking back at the true Prince in defiance, hate sparkling in his eyes. There could be only one winner for this oaf, and he couldn’t see how wrong the whole of this was.

“Traitor!” Andarion spat. “I am the Prince of Nostria, Andarion, son of King Andarion the Second and rightful heir to the throne, and I’ll have anyone who pretends to be me hanged, drawn and quartered!”

“Heh, heh, easy now!” Sly raised his hands. “You don’t want to come off at as too much of a nuisance or you won’t live very long. Varg likes her hostages nice, soft-spoken and complacent while she has no need of them, and utterly quiet while not.”

The mention of the ogre queen reminded Andarion of his situation, absurd as it might be, and the grim, horrid reality of it.

“I don’t want to be a hostage.” The mud-mouthed man replied from the middle. “Can’t I ride with you instead?”

Sly shook his head: “King of Nostria is the best I can do at this time. I should add there is regular food and drink in it for you, and less maltreatment than otherwise. Certainly preferable to becoming ogre food, I should imagine, heh, heh!”

The levity of this brute was driving the Prince sheer mad, but just now his opponent, the imposter from amongst the prospects was his biggest threat.

“Then let me be the king!” The common oaf replied. “I’m much better at kinging than anyone!”

“No, me!” Now spoke the one next to Andarion. “I’m it, I’m the bestest king!”

Sly shook his head and laid his brow in crinkles: “Not quite it, I’m afraid.”

The man at the beginning of the line opened his mouth again: “I can be quiet as a lamb if you need me to, milord, or a roaring lion and the most splendid king you ever want. I’ll do whatever you say. You lead, I follow.”

“Sounds fair enough.” Sly turned to Andarion with pursed lips. “Anything to retort?”

The Prince thought hard. His enemy was a clever wretch to be sure, likely some braggard and dangler at his local tavern. But he had made one chief mistake.

“My lord.” The Prince said calmly. “Not milord, like some peasant would say.”

The other looked at him hatefully, his mouth moving in search of some reply.

But Sly was quicker: “That settles it, I think. Weepke, make sure these others don’t go and divulge my cunning plan now.”

He waved his hand and within a split second, the armoured beast behind them went into motion. The clanking and clattering of her crude, thick metal plates was nothing like Andarion had ever heard and so loud that it almost drowned out the horrible sounds the second and third men next to him made when her armoured feet landed square on top of them.

The prince screamed in horror, as did the wretch from the other end of the line. Blood spurted out from each of Weepke’s giant, ogrish feet with such force that one gout hit Sly square in the face, spraying him red in an instant. The last remaining man put to his heels and proved quicker than Andarion would have believed. His flight ended nevertheless predictably when the armoured ogress swung her enormous flail and threshed the young man out of existence in a spray of blood and black earth, ten paces away from where she was standing.

The prince understood why she had that flail. It was meant to fight armies of men like a crofter would fight bushels of corn during the harvest. When the horrible weapon was dragged backwards to reveal what it had done, the young man was all but gone, ground up to nothing in no more than a heartbeat’s time.

Andarion could feel his own heart beating through his throat.

The small man, meanwhile, was cursing and wiping blood from his face: “Damn you, Weepke! They don’t run very fast, you know, you didn’t need to do it so forcefully!”

At that, the ogress only laughed and took her leave, stepping off the two crushed men in her footprints.

They were alone now, the Prince and the Outlaw. But the outlaw had a sabre at his side and the Prince had nothing, only his cold and malnourishment to hamper him further whereas the outlaw though small looked to be well-fed. The thought of food was an ill one, Andarion noted. It made him hurt more, and as the feeling mingled with the stench of death it made him sick to the stomach.

“Well, to recapitulate,” Sly said, shaking blood of his hands, “who are you?”

Andarion answered through his teeth: “I am Prince Andarion of Nostria, rightful heir to the throne after the death of my father King Andarion the Second.”

The other pursed his lips and nodded: “Very good. Also, remember this; you have been captured by Varg the Impaler, queen of the ogres, and are now a hostage in her retinue. As I said, beats getting munched on. Speaking of which, let’s put some food in your belly. Can’t look kingly when you’re starved,  eh?”

At the mention of nourishment, Andarion nigh on forgot all else, the entire absurdity of his situation. He had been mistaken for himself, apparently, unless this was some cruel trick. He told himself that he would see where he’d end up once he had filled his belly and gotten a clear head again. The Twelve would guide him, surely. This had to be their queer work. They would help him save Nostria from this scourge, and then there were scores to settle. Albernia would have to be made suffer for what they did to his father. And the Horasians for having failed to protect their ally.

As Sly turned to go ahead, a voice from above startled both of them, singing without music a tuneless song of vicious, evil mockery: “The King sold his soul, to the ogre queen named Varg. In return he was promised life, not to end his story’s arc. But little did the King know, it wasn’t how it would seem. For in truth he was still a slave, and Varg his brutal queen.”

He was hanging upside down with his calves over the branch of a beech tree, swinging merrily back and forth with his arms dangling limply.

“Shut up, Krool!” Sly snarled up at him. “One word of this to anybody and I’ll have your tongue!”

“Are you sure, Sly?” The mad, black fool in his blue and white motley grinned yellowly. “I’d still sing, you know, but none of you would be able to understand me.”

This was the first time the Prince heard any speech other than song come from the fool's lips which was quite strange.

Sly turned to Andarion, urging him on: “Nasty piece of work, that one. Best ignore him.”

The madman chuckled dryly: “Ah, ha, ha, ha. Did you halt the column for this farce? Why aren’t we there yet? We are dawdling like washerwomen. A fool might think that you are harbouring doubts.”

With one swift motion he unlocked his legs from the branch and came tumbling down. It looked much as though he was falling uncontrollably before he caught himself just in time to land heavily on his feet, right in Sly’s path. The impact seemed and sounded harsh, but the fool’s thick legs didn’t so much as buckle.

“What’s that to you, eh?” The outlaw argued with a pinch of irritation in his voice. “What do you know of anything?”

“Oh, I know.” The fool grinned dangerously. “I know you serve a powerful man whose patience you do not wish to test, Sly.”

He cocked his head and rolled his yellow eyes when he was done speaking and somehow it looked as though his whole head was rotating upon his neck in a most grotesque fashion.

“I serve Varg!” Sly replied. “But who do you serve, huh? Shall I have a word with her about this? Perhaps she’d want to get to the bottom of it by shoving a stake up yours!”

The black-skinned man tittered: “Varg wants her steel. Varg needs her steel. How else will she kill those things that she does not even dare speak of?”

“Well, I fear she might not be getting it.” Sly retorted in anger. “We’ve been at that mountain with everything we have. It cannot be mined or smelted. We could hardly scratch the surface of that stuff, let alone remove any of it!”

“There are ways that require neither hammer nor furnace,” replied the fool. “He knows these ways. Give him what he wants and he will teach you.”

Andarion did not understand a word they were saying and increasingly felt like he wasn’t meant to be part of this conversation. It was all he could do to try and breathe quietly.

Sly, meanwhile, remained unconvinced: “That I believe when I see it. There are some who might say it cannot be done. And how convenient then, that we shall do our end of the bargain first, eh?”

“Has he given you cause to doubt him, Sly?” The fool looked surprised. “Did Stoerrebrandt stinge you? Have they delivered rotten grain, old cattle, uh...barren sows for your stoneoak wood?”

The Prince’s ears pricked up at the mention of the trade house, the richest and largest among all the trade houses. He had heard his father curse them a couple of times, something about special privileges regarding harbour use and taxes, if his memory served. Should it turn out that Stoerrebrandt traded with the ogre queen then surely this would spell the end for them. Trading with the enemy, after all, was treason.

Sly argued back, heatedly: “I’ve heard no such complaints from my men, only that the copper pinchers offer us steel as well. Nordmarker steel, they say, from the duke’s own furnaces, better than anything we could hope for. Instead of running through the woods after vague promises, we could be sitting in Nostria harbour instead, with bellies full of ale! It sounds like a more prudent use of our forces, and our time.”

The fool gave a ghastly laugh at that: “Is this how you imagine your future? Aye, you are growing old.”

“And your loyalties are growing doubtful!” Sly countered. “Have you been spying on us all this time for this boy you place so much faith in?!”

The mad fool started to titter and giggle so much that he seemed imperiled of toppling over backwards: “Spying?! Ah, ha, hee, hoo, hoo, and I thought my japes were droll! He has eyes most everywhere, Sly, no need for spies. He may be watching us, even now.”

He drooped forward and stuck his head out, rolling his eyes at the trees above and around much as though he hoped to find someone there. Andarion took a gaze around as well, frightened by all this queer talk. But there was no one.

Finally, the black-skinned madman fixed his yellowed eyes once more on Sly: “Was it not he who gave you the bargain with Stoerrebrandt? Where without him would we be this winter, oh I wonder? Nostria has hardly enough fodder left to feed its own kind, and Andergast even less. Does he not deserve your love for that, at least?”

Sly seemed to chew on that for a moment.

Finally, he replied: “Who is he then? What purpose does he hold? He is no copper pincher, that much I could smell just by a whiff of him. And what could be this thing he wants us recover for him, and to what end does he intend to use it?”

“Questions upon questions.” The fool grinned. “You may have made a splendid inquisitor, heh, heh. Such suspicion. His ends are the same as yours, Sly. But to beat the enemy, you must needs know him. That is what we recover for him.”

Sly scoffed: “I’ve never known knowledge to be so heavy as that it takes an army of ogresses to move! You will speak truth to me now, Krool, or I will have Weepke squeeze it out of you!”

The black fool was unperturbed by the threat and only grinned wider: “Deep into the cold steel mountain you must go, Sly. A large and heavy door you must unlock. There you shall find him. His blood runs cold, aye, and his body is rotten, but by studying he who is dead, the master will find the knowledge to slay them who are alive. You know of what I speak.”

“No.” Sly said firmly after a long moment of uncomfortable silence during which the two stared at each other like juxtaposed statues. “You speak in bloody riddles. I think we’ve seen rather too much you. I’m sick onto death of your songs anyhow. Weepke!”

He shouted and wrenched the sabre from his belt, a cruel, nicked blade that had seen much use but little honing.

The fool backed away grinning: “Open the tomb, Sly. Remove the door. You need not drag out the Jake. The raven will carry him.”

Andarion did not understand a word.

With his last words spoken, the fool turned around hissing, right up against the nearest tree. He looked like a puppy humping its master’s leg at that, but his palms and feet seemed to stick to the wood like some vile sorcery. A heartbeat later, he was gone, crawled up into the branches and leaves like an overgrown spider. Then they could hear him no more.

Sly stared into the darkness above their heads with hateful eyes.

“The Jake,” he echoed. “What kind of a stupid word is that?”

“I wouldn't know.” Andarion answered when it seemed to be expected of him.

“Come then.” Sly said. “It's past time we were moving. Best we get this wretched nonsense over with so we can go back to your kingdom. You aren't married to an, uh, living wife, are you, boy?”

Andarion shook his head instinctively. He was unmarried as yet, although there had been prospects.

“Heh,” Sly made. “Varg will be disappointed to hear it. She has so come to love squashing wives.”

Yes, dear. I will do what you say. Yes, dear, my sweetling, by night and still by day. What? Yes, dear. No, I don’t wish us to fight. Yes, dear, I’m wrong and you are right.