Laura was caught like a deer in the headlights. The first attack had come straight out of the winter sun, the glare turning her blind up until the last instant. She was set upon by a black, flying shadow, and it breathed fire. She could feel the warmth upon her face and smelled her singeing eyebrows. Some of her hair caught fire but she was able to beat it out swiftly.

With a woosh much too strong for a creature the size of a kitten, it rushed past her and down the slope of the plateau she was on. When she caught her bearings after putting out her burning hair, she could just in time see it coming at her again.

“Fuck off!” She half screamed and half shrieked, turning away and shielding her head with her hands.

The dragon was only the size of a kitten but its fire unnerved her, and its aggressiveness and the suddenness of the onslaught. It was also not black, that had been because of the glare, but golden, scaled head to heel, and horned and winged and terrible-looking.

She screeched when the warmth caressed her buttocks.

She frantically beat at her jeans and the bottom of her shirt, but it did not seem have done much more than caress her. She wondered if she was simply too big to catch fire. The Horasians had succeeded, reasonably, at setting her alight, but that had only been because of burning pitch and oil. Dragon fire wasn’t napalm, she sensed, but rather more like a burning gas.

It was quite hot, though, and she thought to recall Furio or Signor Hatchet saying something about magic. She and Janna had received a veritable lecture about dragons, but just like the lectures on Earth, Laura had forgotten all about it once it came to applying under pressure what she had learned before.

She looked up with more time to prepare, seeing the dragon make a turn above before coming down again, just like a fighter aircraft might have done. The situation was crazy.

“Fuck off!” She said again, yelling it this time and dodging to the other end of the plateau where the decline was less steep, the way she had ascended in the first place.

The dragon had no way to shoot past her this time and expended its flame much too early. She did not even have to move much to avoid its danger.

Her heart was pumping madly nonetheless. Nevermind the fire, she was confronted with a lizard the size of a kitten with wings, which in retrospect made it more like a seagull in furs. On Earth, a mad animal this size would probably have terrified her too, provided it managed not to look cute and adorable while exerting its aggression. But looking cute and adorable was nothing this dragon would ever have to worry about, just like a lizard this size would have scared the living daylights out of her on Earth.

But she was ninety metres tall.

‘Good on you to remember that.’ She reflected. ‘You’re entirely on the defensive here. Come up with something!’

She certainly hated being pushed against a wall, so while the dragon flew a large circle to get back to its favourable angle of attack, she thought about something she might do to fight back at it. The more she thought, however, the more a strange taste spread in her mouth. It was of some coarse grey bread, rye if she wasn’t mistaken, and she wanted it more than anything else in the world. It was rather strange.

Cheese perhaps, she thought, and lots of butter.

‘What the hell am I thinking?’

It was time, the dragon came again and she hadn’t used her time well. In lack of anything smarter she lashed out, eyes closed and hacking and hammering with her hands.

Seeing this, the dragon attacked too early again, hitting her hands and arms this time. Its fire might singe Laura’s skin easily if able to be applied at length, she judged, but in flight and with her moving so frantically, that just wasn’t possible. Yet she still couldn’t come up with a better way to defend herself. She must have looked like some stupid toddler.

But the dragon seemed to sense that its attacks were all but useless too. It was a stalemate of the strangest variety while it circled, then made another attack run that Laura dodged by running.

“Ahhhhh!”

Laura was confused. The voice seemed to come from below and be belonging to a tiny human male. She remembered the boy she had let go, and then she saw him. She had almost squashed him under her foot just a moment earlier, a mite caught between gods.

‘Go!’ She thought. ‘Just run away, I won’t kill you!’

Maybe she was longing for an ally in this fight, hating to be alone. Anytime she walked away from Janna…if only Janna wasn’t so difficult to be around just now.

They had said something about magic, and Furio, the wizard of buzzkill, had lamented the invadable state of Laura’s and Janna’s minds. That she wasn’t quite alone in her head became clear to her when the dragon changed strategies and instead of attacking her, the ninety-metre-tall, gigantic opponent that could easily crush him, it pounced upon the tiny, running boy instead, like an owl on a mouse.

It may have overestimated the boy’s value to her, she thought, and then forced herself to think how horrible it was, how much she wanted him to make it, despite the fact that he was less than dirt to her. It seemed to work.

“Mhhh, the worm is mine!”

The dragon's speech was nigh incomprehensible on account of its lisping, the words gnarled and full of spittle. That being said, though, it was also deep, throaty and terrifying.

“Why are you here?! What do you want from me?!” She screamed back at it in turn.

A golden eye with a black slit darted towards Laura’s boats full of plunder, gleaming there so temptingly in the light.

‘Of course.’ She thought. ‘How stupid.’

“You cannot have this gold!” She screamed. “It is mine!”

The dragon had smashed the boy into the ground just by virtue of the wind it was able to make with its wings. Its wingspan was larger than the length of its body, but its body mass wasn’t all that much to begin with. It just seemed really large while its wings were spread, but they were mostly skin and bone. That wasn’t to say that Laura would underestimate this opponent, however.

“What is it doing west of the Brazen Sword?!” It hissed at her. “And why does it speak so queerly?!”

It spoke like a snake in a children’s cartoon, almost. It’s Ss and Zs were long-drawn, and its WH was a husk, like in the live footage of the earliest anthropologists that could be filmed and recorded, sometime in the twentieth century, long ago. She didn’t know what the Brazen Sword was supposed to be either.

Strangely, perhaps because it was still reading her thoughts, the dragon shook its head in bewilderment.

“What is it?!”

Laura chewed her tongue for a moment: “I’m big, is what I am. Fuck off, this gold is mine!”

“Then its worm dies!” It replied horribly.

But it was time to play with an open deck here.

“I don’t fucking care, “She replied lightly. “Kill him. Eat him, if you want.”

She was slightly curious what that might look like. The boy was nothing to her.

Meanwhile, the dragon seemed irritated. It brought the boy up in its right front claw, eying her curiously the whole time. Laura wondered if it thought of its frontal claws as hands at the end of arms, or rather considered itself to have four legs with feet on them, but there was no asking such things now. Its maw was a horrible thing at any size, rows of dagger-like teeth and a massive lower jaw.

The golden eye studied her, still waiting for a reaction, suspecting a bluff. Laura’s breath quickened, but not on account of the boy. Finally, with a throaty noise, the dragon lowered the struggling youngling into its mouth, clenching its teeth around his chest, piercing and crushing him at the same time. The boy’s fate was thus sealed even before the flames came. For a split second, he was glowing. Then he turned from golden-brown to charcoal just as quickly and was wolfed down by the giant beast at once.

“Hmm!” It sighed once more, a thing it apparently liked to do, before complaining. “Why is it not dishevelled?!”

She licked her lips and forced herself to shrug: “I was going to eat him too, earlier, but I much prefer maidens.”

“So do I,” a voice, not with a lisp and much, much louder spoke right into Laura’s neck.

She screamed and turned around, ready to shove whatever monster was lurking there. Her hands only found thin air, however, but at the edge of the plateau as she was, she lost her footing and one leg slid down the slope, unearthing another boulder to roll down thunderously.

‘Rocks!’ The idea finally came to her, in between her heart beating up her throat, her other knee hitting the ground hard and her eyes darting around, still looking for a voice that had no physical origin.

She finally understood that the dragon was messing with her and turned to face it once more, worried that it might use the distraction to attack her. She should have been throwing rocks at the thing, try to bring it down. The dragon was on its heels, ready to take off at any sign of threat.

“Ow.”

As the adrenaline receded, her knee started to hurt. She realized that there was another rock right where it had landed, but if the dragon was still reading her thoughts it now knew the same. But a rock was a rock and if it was anywhere near as big and heavy as the foundlings she had dislodged so far it might give her a way of fighting back, provided she could actually hit her target.

So, she remained on the ground, awkwardly with one leg off the plateau, just sitting there and working her hand beneath her knee. It was probably good to make some distracting conversation.

‘So, you like to eat damsels too, huh?’

“Shouldn’t you be in some lair atop a mountain, being slain by a knight or whatever?” She asked bluntly.

To her surprise, the creature gave a bark of laughter, but the voice in her head answered.

“Our return into this world has been a recent thing. A voice said ‘come’, and we came, all, all that are left of us.”

“I’ve seen you.” She replied at once. “You were flying, high up in the sky where I can’t crush you. If you had any sense you would go up there again.”

Perhaps it was even worth losing the gold if doing so meant she could have a conversation with this beast, she thought. It had to be thousands of years old and she might learn a thing or two, things that might prove useful. On the other hand would she be loath to part with her plunder. She had worked for it and her kingdom might have fewer problems by virtue of it…maybe. In any event, if she could talk to the dragon, get rid of it one way or the other and then keep her gold too, that would be the dream.

“Not even a dragon can fly forever,” the voice answered deeply but left it at that while the golden eye was still transfixed upon her.

She really wondered if the dragon could make any sense of the things it must have found in her mind. If anything, it must have been terribly confusing, even for a probably wise, old and magical creature such as this one.

“Right.” Laura said when another notion came to her. “But you could’ve crawled under some rock and stayed there. What is it, does it get lonely without a hoard? I just thought how wise you probably must be, yet here you are, conversing with your doom, all for a few measly, glinting coins.”

Again, the dragon hissed, baring its teeth at her. The realization that it was anger she had provoked was stunning.

“It is as greedy as I am!” The dragon accused her with its inadequate mouth this time. “I will burn it for this hoard, just like I did its little worm!”

It must have found the contents of her mind too confusing, Laura thought. Memories of a past long gone from a world that to this creature was a long distant future it couldn’t possibly make sense of. Maybe there was something else, though, but she couldn’t put her finger on it.

“A wizard told me that your fire is magic.” She went on with the conversation. “Is that true?”

The dragon studied her hatefully, not responding. If she wanted answers she would have to ask better questions or otherwise one of them would do something that would result in the end of the momentary respite. It occurred to Laura that with the boy charcoaled and devoured there wasn’t any discernible reason why the creature remained on the ground like this.

Laura was on the ground too, after all, and there seemed no better opportunity to fly more fire-breathing attack runs. She could’ve gotten up had she wanted to, however, and perhaps the dragon knew that. Her knee would be blue tomorrow, but other than that she couldn’t feel that there might be anything wrong with it.

“What is your name?” She tried again but received only another sigh as a response.

Actually, the dragon’s demeanour started to unnerve her. She couldn’t tell why it remained on the ground, and so motionless at that too. The rock was almost loose at this point, but she had to work so much that it must have been easy to spot what she was doing. But the dragon didn’t care.

“How old are you?” She continued. “Where do you come from? Where are you going? What kind of dragon are you?”

None of it worked, though.

“What happened to the Farindel Woods, why is the Red Curse back?”

The dragon’s head snapped around so that slits of both its eyes were now looking at her. It was rather weird, Janna had said once that flight animals, as opposed to predators, tended to have their eyes on opposite sides of their head so as to be able to see as much of their surroundings as possible. Predators on the other hand needed to be able to see three-dimensionally, distance to and speed of their prey and so on, which was why their eyes both pointed in the same direction.

That would make a dragon, or this one at least, not a predator. The space in which it was able to see three-dimensionally was extremely limited on account of its long, oversized snout. But then again, it was magic all over. Laura could feel it.

“Do you know?” She followed up on the long-awaited reaction. “What happened there?!”

It looked like the dragon would reply to her for a long moment. Then, however, it faded, like frost on a window, vanishing into thin air.

“Wait!” Laura called, lunging forward, patting the ground where it had been. The imprints of its claws upon the ground were still there, but that was all. She could have screamed with rage. She looked towards her gold, half a step off to the side, and discovered that one of her vessels of treasure had gone as well.

“Thief!”

She stood up at once, scanning the horizon. It had to have been magic, an ‘Illusion’ spell, she judged, and a rather trippy experience to have been subject to. The real dragon had clawed her gold and made off with it while she was unknowingly seeing an entirely different reality.

She felt like she had seen something like that once, back on Earth in an old movie or something. Her parents used to love those…

She shook her head to get rid of the memory. It hurt and there were more pressing matters at hand, as usual.

Then she saw it, flying towards Vairningen, not very high or fast at all, struggling with the weight of the boat that was about a third its size and filled with heavy metals. The rock was in her hand at once and she ran, down the less steep slope, crunching rotten vine stocks under her heels as she went. Then it was back the way she had come. She was physically fit and the world was small, and the speed she could achieve sprinting had to be akin to a racing car or even an aeroplane at this rate.

The long, golden-scaled neck twisted around at the commotion she made, a golden eye with a black slit narrowing at her. The huge, pale wings started to beat faster but changed their angle somewhat as the creature was sacrificing speed for altitude. It was a clever move. Laura could outrun the dragon, but not outclimb it.

‘I’m coming for you, thief!’ She thought in her mind and hoped that the dragon could still hear her. ‘I will crunch you under my feet like all the rest!’

It wasn’t so much about the gold anymore as it was about vengeance. It would be the greatest thing to keep it alive, maybe torture it to gain its knowledge, but it had proved to be too powerful for that. A quit pro quo, horse trade kind of arrangement might have worked initially, but Laura had probably been betrayed by her thoughts so that any such notion was now futile.

When she was only four steps away, the dragon was almost over Vairningen and so high that she was doubtful if she could still reach it. So, she hurled her rock. It was big, heavy even for her. It sailed through the air and towards its target. Laura had never been particularly good at throwing, though. Not as bad as some girls in school, the kinds of girls who would even have trouble launching a paper plane. But not as good as a professional athlete either, or those sporty girls who seemed to have no other hobbies.

On this occasion, luck was at least partially on her side. It wasn’t a full-on hit. That might have smashed the dragon dead anyway. Rather the rock struck its left wing, jerking the creature to one side and sending it into a spiralling tumble.

And it was losing altitude.

Today, luck was certainly not on the side of Vairningen, however. The huge, massive boulder did not stay in the air for long. After striking the dragon’s wing it fell, like a stone was supposed to, and landed square amidst the tightly packed homes and shops of the small town, rolling once, twice, and kicking up straw, debris and wood as it went and tearing with it many a funny, small garland.

There was so much dust that it vanished from vision after a moment, but Laura paid it small mind anyways. Up above the destruction on the ground, the dragon spiralled and screamed. Still it seemed to cling to the boat full of gold. Perhaps that showed how greedy it was, the poor thing. Nevertheless did some coinage spill, like a golden rain, or hailstones. It would have been nice had they landed inside Vairningen, like a recompense for the damage Laura had just caused. But such things only happened in movies.

The dragon ultimately caught itself near the ground, flapping another time before it fell completely, veering off to the side of its broken wing. Laura was hot on its heels of course, but to her surprise it was quite fast on the ground as well. It had abandoned the gold mid-flight to have its claws free, dropping it straight into the river from a low altitude. The boat teetered left and right and left again but proved to continue afloat even perilously overladen.

Laura might have shaken her head at the display, thinking back to what the Phex priest in the town had said about greed before she had drowned him. Even faced with certain death, the dragon could not bring itself to just drop it, let it spill and be lost upon the ground. It could’ve dropped its load much earlier and lived, whereas now it was scurrying on the ground like a rat, running as fast as it could from Laura’s feet behind it.

But it was quick.

Laura took the river with a big leap, one step behind the dragon, then two steps on account of staggering. The dragon didn’t run like a dog using for- and hindquarters as one, but rather seemed to march like a rooster front and aft simultaneously. Its long, slender tail gave it balance and helped with the distribution of weight and its folded wings still flapped ever so slightly to give it more speed.

Had there been trees, who knew, it might actually have escaped already. It could change direction rapidly too, as Laura discovered when she aimed at its centre mass for her foot to land on only for the golden body to cut ninety degrees to the left and her landing a little off so that she twisted her ankle and fell.

It was at that moment she realized she could have let the dragon go and not pursued it. But just like it was clinging to the gold so did she cling to her hatred. Her ankle throbbed. She had taken damage. It was a bit like her knee earlier, except worse. But a quick wiggle of her toes meant that it probably wasn’t broken.

‘Please don’t be broken.’

It was hard to tell such things in the heat of the moment.

The fall had seen her smash head over heels into a stubble field. Everything was dirty now, including her face. It was stupid, but she wouldn’t let the dragon escape.

It looked quite funny there now as it ran down the road in its absurd goose-step sprint while being all golden. Laura climbed back to her feet and tested her ankle, seeing that she could still use it, even if it hurt a little.

The long neck craned around another time, then went back and lowered down to the road for more speed. Running on the road, Laura was even faster, however. On the fields it was like running through mud because she was so bloody heavy. She didn’t want to risk another sidestep of her prey, so she just jumped high and wide, bringing both her feet forward to maximize the kill zone, just in case.

At the lack of footfalls, the neck turned yet again, and she could see one golden eye widen with terror when the dragon saw her. It was too late to make a cut this time.

The cobbled road gave way in a splash of stones and white sand that would have murdered any bystanders, had there been any. Laura’s feet connected with her intended target and her weight did the rest. This target was larger than any other living thing she had crushed thus far. The dragon was even larger than any ogress.

It rolled for half a turn before becoming stuck under her heels, at which point its belly refused to move on account of the pressure while its back couldn’t help but move because of Laura. It ripped open and unravelled like a rabbit under a truck tire. Laura slid along on its disintegrating body and fell over backwards.

She had lost sight of the dragon when there was an explosion of flame, briefly warming everything from her soles all the way up to her crotch. She landed on her butt and elbows, and quickly got up to see whether or not she had caught fire.

She hadn’t, and the warmth was already gone again, everywhere but her feet. She brought them up, finding them smoking and covered in hot, red, bubbling dragon’s blood. It was as hot as boiling water, and getting hotter quickly as the warmth spread through her skin. She grasped her shoes and tore them off, her socks as well for good measure. Then everything was fine.

While her breath calmed, she regarded her shoes, which were still smoking and the rubber seemed to liquefy now too. It made sense, she figured, for a creature like a dragon to be very hot-blooded. She tossed her footwear and socks into the river where everything hissed and foul-smelling vapour started rising from bubbles of boiling water for a long moment.

“Fuck!” She said aloud, despite being alone.

The dragon carcass between her legs was smoking as well. It was a bloody mess in the truest sense of the word, a scene of carnage more than two feet long. There was a lot of blood in a dragon as well.

She wanted its skin, though, the golden scales, and its head for a trophy to show off in Honingen. It was another awesome display of her power, or at least an explanation for why she was limping and covered in dirt. When she had sat and rested enough, she grabbed a bit of skin that had cooled and lowered the entire body into the river. She didn't know if there were any particular things one could do with the innards of a dragon, and in any case did she judge them still too hot to touch.

They fell off and were left upon the road, the river red with blood and the boat slowly drifting off in the distance until it ran aground at a bend in the river almost a kilometre away from Vairningen. When she had it and was walking past the town back to the plateau to get the rest of her booty, she caught a good glimpse of the damage her rock had caused.

Seven or so houses were damaged or partially devastated with roofs caving in, and three or so had been absolutely flattened. A handful of dead had been laid out side by side amidst the devastation, ranging from mostly intact to equally as squished as the dragon.

“I’m sorry about this.” She said, even though she couldn’t help but smile. “I wasn’t aiming for you lot. Let me make good on it with a little loan.”

She upended the remaining contents of her boat right into Vairningen, coins and goldware clinking and clattering on the cobbled ground. The silence in the town was palpable. All labour had stopped once more. Neither was there a panic, though.

“You will pay it back to me by the end of next week, double.” She smirked at them. “Pay up or get crunched.”

Her shoes and socks were still dripping water and she was barefoot now, so she had to get back to Honingen and get a fire going. The exertion of killing the dragon had made her quite hungry too, however. She bent and took a girl from the village, blond and clueless-looking, tore the green woollen skirts off and tossed her into her mouth.

‘I’m a dragon slayer.’ She thought cheerily while she played with the girl on her tongue, making her way back to the plateau to retrieve her other boats. She could barely wait to show off the dragon to Janna and the people of Honingen.

It would probably be a good idea to slow things down and get situated for the winter. Honingen’s food supplies were beginning to run low at this point, but they had a whole kingdom now to supply them. Winter would probably suck no matter what they did, so it might be best to just lay low, stay drunk and eat well while listening to medieval music and watching spectacles. Laura might kill a few people here and there, but not too much to upset things.

Spring should be amazing, a time of emergence, whereas in winter the days were short, the weather cold and wet, the trees bare of leaves and the people miserable, or so Laura assumed. For this reason, she thought that finding a way to make it go by quicker was the best course of action, somewhat in contrast to the bountiful things still left unchecked on her to-do list. She didn’t even want to think about that.

When Honingen was in sight again, she started skipping, ignoring the throbbing in her ankle.

But what she found did not bring her any joy.

-

The drums were beating: Ba-dum, dum-dum-dum…dum, ba-dum, dum-dum-dum…

“We are the Vulture’s heap of men, ha-ya, oho!” Dum-dum-dum-dum. “And trodden down we rise again, ha-ya, oho!” Dum-dum-dum-dum…dum. “Spears in line! Left, right, fine! Hoist the drawstring shoe and drink the wine! Spears in line! Left, right, fine! Hang the tyrants up by neck and spine!”

Ba-dum, dum-dum-dum…dum, ba-dum, dum-dum-dum…dum.

Far as songs went, it wasn’t his best creation, Garvin took note uneasily. Hopefully, that told the countess that they had practically forced him, left him little choice whether to make it or not. It was a marching song, steady and unrelenting and the second verse rolled around like a thunder from a hundred throats.

“When Praios dug and Travia spun, ky-ree-elice!” Dum-dum-dum-dum…dum. “Where were you then, oh nobleman? Ky-ree-elice!” Dum-dum-dum …

Then it was the refrain again, double tempo but easy to hold on account of the drums, whose players knew their craft well. Garvin was sweating and had to lick his lips else they’d dry up.

He was on the entirely wrong side of this. He should not have been part of this at all. But he had ended up here, separated from everyone else.

“We want war! We want war!” Everybody had shouted.

The countess and the other nobles had been taken by the knights and soldiers and rushed to safety. The courtiers who attended them did their best to do the same. Garvin had failed. The rebels had started burning the wooden stands which were draped in cloth and soon burned like candles. The tents burned even better, wax cloth that they were, and fuelled with the straw from the horselines.

Everything had been full of smoke and Garvin had to save Cathal. It had been a close call, but Garvin’s previous song, the one he couldn’t even remember singing, had saved their lives. The people had liked his song and now they had wanted a new one, a song for Florian Vulture, the rebel of Abilacht, whom they had freed from his caged wagon where he had been kept. Thus was born The Vulture’s Heap of Men.

Without doubt, Laura would have crushed the rebels had she not quarrelled with Janna and taken her leave. And now she would crush all of Honingen, surely, and Garvin with them. These people he saw were fools, but he dared not say so openly.

“Marvellous song, singer!” Florian Vulture commented from the head of the table when the singing had stopped. “I have always enjoyed the beating of drums. A choice cut of meat for Garvin Blaithin!”

“Hoorah!”

Garvin waved off awkwardly, staring at his thin leek soup with a withered, bony piece of smoked salmon. He had not touched a spoon of it. His song had earned him the questionable honour of sitting with those who deemed themselves the foremost within this soon to be short-lived rebellion. They were set up, not in the city hall, nor any of the taverns that would have been far better suited for this make-shift feast, such as the Horse Thief’s Inn, the luxurious Honinger Land Hotel, the Red Unicorn, the recently closed Seven Tulamidian Nights or the Blue Tower Tavern. Instead, of all places, they were set up in the colourful temple of Tsa.

As was customary, the building was being used secondarily as an orphanage. Dirty children were everywhere, running, screaming and laughing as they pleased, regardless of the terrified priestesses who were trying to reign them in on account of the rebels. The venue had been chosen because the rebels were hiding from the giantesses, so none of the traditional centres of power were fit for use.

To his credit, Florian Vulture knew how to behave like a nobleman and had forbidden unwanted advances upon the women by any of his men. Preventing rape had been amongst the first things he enacted when the people had freed him and taken him for their leader. Garvin had heard contradicting accounts on the Vulture’s birth and station, however, which had burned under his nails while he was writing his song.

The man was bulky, large but droop-shouldered, with a fearsome but reasonably well-trimmed beard. His hair was curly straw for the most part but seemed to turn darker the closer it crept down his neck. His clothes were Horasian somewhat after a fashion, but not fashionable as such. Garvin knew an arming jacket when he saw one, and this one had seen much use as was visible from wear and sweat stains. The man’s hat was vaguely Horasian as well but patched so often and ordained with such queer ornamentations that one could not make sense of them.

The most pause-giving part about Florian Vulture was the iron ring still forged about his neck, a thing that reminded everybody how close to death he had had come. The chain attached to that ring had been struck off and now he ruled Honingen, at least until Laura turned them all to smears beneath her feet.

“We’re not cutting tongues out any longer, singer. Those days are done. Speak your mind as were you a lord in his own hall and put yourself at ease.”

It became apparent to Garvin that he should have said something after receiving praise. The table was deathly silent all of a sudden and everyone had to be looking at him. A fresh platter arrived with slices of roasted salt mutton with a gravy that was black as night, pushing away his soup bowl. He stared at that too for a moment longer, watching the thick goo dripple over the dry, stringy meat he saw there. Priestesses did not make for accomplished cooks, and an orphanage had to make due with alms and the such like.

“Th-thank you, my lord.” He stammered. “A-and for the meat.”

He shovelled a piece of pork with his spoon and tried to eat it, but his jaw did not appear to have the strength.

“Can’t live on praise alone after all, eh?” The Vulture chuckled and a few at the table grinned with him. “I am no lord, though, no matter my blood. And we shall do away with that shite for good, I wish you all know that. We’re all equals here.”

“Hear, hear!” It rang from the benches, but by far not all of them.

Garvin did not know what to make of that. It didn’t matter anyhow, seeing as they were all in for a thorough flattening with the return of Laura. The thought made him swallow somehow, which was bad because he hadn’t chewed his salt pork. If truth be told he hadn’t really tasted it either, not with his mind at it. As a result, he choked and coughed violently and was ultimately forced to spit out the meat back onto the platter.

“Oh?” Florian Vulture leaned forward. “Do you have any objections to our ideals, or is that meat turned?”

Conversations on the other benches seemed to silence at once.

Garvin had to breathe heavily for a moment: “N-no, my lord, I only…I cannot eat with our doom impending so closely.”

The Vulture laughed: “Ah, have courage, my friend! We shall stay indoors until these giant wenches have moved on. They won’t destroy Honingen.”

The notion was so utterly stupid that Garvin almost despaired. Laura and Janna had reportedly laid waste to the entirety of Thorwal, which was a deal bigger than even the entire Kingdom of Albernia. Furthermore, they had flattened Winhall so thoroughly that only its outer walls remained, and then done the same for the better part of the County. They had killed tens of thousands for no apparent reason at all, and Honingen had given them enough cause to do the same here.

A braver man asked before Garvin found the words: “Aye, what makes you so sure of that, though? And why would they just move along?”

The Vulture was more than inclined to explain again: “Well, they haven’t destroyed it thus far, have they? They like this old town, for all we know, or they made a deal with that old harridan of Countess. Makes no matter. And without the city, the countess does not have enough food to feed them through the winter, so they will have to go elsewhere.”

Murmurs of agreement and doubt mixed equally in the room until someone different asked: “And then?”

“We desire only to be free and serve no foreign ruler, good or evil.” Florian Vulture declared. “We can trade with anyone who will have us, as before. And we shall be a free city. No more wars, no kings or lords to scrape to. I’ve done my deal of scraping, you can believe me, and there’s been days I’ve been scraped to myself. I care none for it.”

“I thought you was a sellsword, fightin’ in them Horasians’ wars!” Someone from further away called out.

“Aye, so I was,” replied the Vulture with a smile. “Killing men on the battlefield has taught me that there is no such thing as blue blood, only pale skin and unhealthy arrogance, both of which you get by shunning honest work beneath Praios’ all-seeing eye!”

“Who will lead us then,” an older man inquired quickly before a cheer could errupt, “if we’re all equals?”

It seemed that Garvin’s little impasse had unleashed a flurry of questions, begging in itself the question of what men were asking in parts of Honingen where Florian Vulture was not on hand to answer them. The rebel had a whole lot to answer for, far as Garvin was concerned, no matter how much he had addressed during his great speech on Travia Square earlier.

Someone else shouted before the Vulture could speak: “The Council of Guilds of course, you dimwit!”

“Belisa Tibradan!”

“Florian will lead us!”

The big rebel ignored all of it: “We will govern ourselves, as we should. All men are equal before the Twelve, and thus every man shall have a voice, a vote, one vote to cast according to his will whatever it may be.”

The idea was absurd, as was pointed out immediately: “Every man? Surely not every man, no? Only those that own a lot in the city have its good interests at heart, that’s obvious. We shan’t put our fate in the hands of beggars and daytallers, not to mention refugees, travelling folk and Norbards?!”

“He said every man, didn’t he, you old coxcomb! Now shut your yap!”

A fight broke out that was quickly turning into a brawl, forcing the Vulture to stand up and spread his arms wide.

“Friends!” He called out forcefully, his booming voice commanding respect. “If we’re not equals, then what’s the point? Whatever small group we put above ourselves would just be like the lords and ladies who were there before them. Every man has a vested interest in the success of our city, and if we do it my way then the cooler heads will always prevail!”

“I hear you talk of men,” a Tsa priestess holding a crying child noted, “what of us women, do we not live here too?”

“Women folk are feeble-minded!” A man put her down at once, even while Florian Vulture seemed to struggle for a reply.

Another remark, brought forth by the very first man, gave him an exit: “That all matters nothing! The singer’s right, we’re all doomed! Even if those giant demon whores leave us be here, Countess Franka will not!”

“Weren’t you listening, you blistering fool?!” One with more fervour for the Vulture’s ideals spoke up. “We have more food than she does, let alone men! She cannot starve us out nor fight us out neither!”

“The giant queen controls the kingdom now. You heard her.” Objected the other man. “They can cart food up here from any place they so choose.”

Florian Vulture interjected: “Not with Bragon Fenwasian about, they can’t!”

That shut everybody up quite thoroughly and turned all their heads, including Garvin’s.

“Aye, ha, ha!” The Vulture smirked all around. “The beasts may have trodden on the thistle once, but its pricks are deep within their flesh now. No cart of food, nor weapons or soldiers will reach Honingen. Bragon Fenwasian will see to that.”

Men had wondered where the Count of Winhall had gone, whether he was still alive or with the king perhaps, or else with Arlan Stepahan up in Nostria, a venture that some claimed had not ended well. In retrospect, it seemed obvious that he had done neither. The Fenwasians of Iauncyll never lingered long afar the Farindel, especially now with the Red Curse being back.

Having lived in their shadow for a long time Garvin knew these things well, although Bragon Fenwasian was a harsh man with no taste for music. He said that it distracted him from hearing the wind whisper through the trees and speak to him.

His love for the fairy of course could mean that Fenwasian might be too occupied to blockade Franka Salva Galahan from her supplies, and her men – a majority of her soldiers having stayed loyal to her – had already begun laying siege to the city by blocking off all of Honingen’s gates with dykes, stakes and ditches.

Garvin couldn’t have said whether it was confidence or vanity, but the Vulture’s voice carried so much promise that the room was finally swayed.

The time for questions was over in any case, because a runner arrived blaring his horrible news straight into the room: “The giantess is coming! It’s the big one and she carries soldiers! Quick, arm yourselves!”

That was also a possibility, Garvin realized. Since the rebels were split from house to house, they were vulnerable to attack from foes of their own size, overwhelming their numbers locally while the giantess stood by to stomp on any sallying forces sent to assist. Maybe the Vulture wasn't so clever after all.

“Men!” Florian climbed the table and spoke to everyone at large. “If they try to root us out of our hiding places, then we will fight them! We are more than they are, they cannot conquer us!”

It was as though there was a flaw in every one of Florian Vulture’s plans. Outside they could not go or they would be crushed, meaning that they could hardly help their fellow rebels in other houses.

But it proved to be different.

“Don’t be afraid, tiny people, I come in peace! I’ll not hurt any of you, I swear!”

The thin, stale ale in Garvin’s cup vibrated with every footfall of Janna outside. He did not know that giant woman. At least with Laura he had spoken a couple of times.

“Ha!” The Vulture called out. “They want to negotiate already! What did I tell you?!”

It truly seemed that way, unlikely as it was. But the sudden success also put the rebels at an impasse.

“It’s a trap!” Someone formulated the conundrum immediately. “Don’t go out there, Florian, or you’ll be crushed!”

Curses were uttered by several men all around, but the Vulture once more had thought ahead of them.

“We will send a negotiator!” He explained. “Who among you can retell those things I said?”

While no one answered, Garvin had a bad feeling in his gut and he tried to make himself as small as possible. But the inevitable unfolded much as it always did, and he couldn't do anything about it.

“Singers have good memories, don’t they?”

“Of course they do, else how would they remember all them songs?!”

He dared not refuse them.

Thus, the horrible task fell unto him, and he found himself darting from shadow to shadow between the houses to get to where the giantess stood. Laura had not returned yet, it seemed, but from near every house he passed people hissed after him for news of the Vulture. He ignored them all and made haste, ultimately arriving at the gargantuan brown leather boots of Janna, slightly sunk into the cobbled street from all her massive weight.

It so happened that just when he arrived, the Horasian Signor Hatchet was emerging from one of the buildings that Garvin identified as the recently closed Seven Tulamidian Nights. Behind him went Abilachter Riders on foot and wrestling with several large stone clay tubs of Novadi fashion and bringing them out onto the street.

“You?!” The Horasian gaped at him. “What are you doing here?”

The horseless riders also gave him quizzical looks.

“I can explain!” Garvin called to them loudly so that the giantess would hear and not inadvertently squish him. “I am sent as the Vulture’s negotiator!”

In truth, there wasn’t much he could negotiate on, only explain the situation and make it sound to the rebels’ advantage, although the wisdom of such an undertaking seemed highly questionable.

Signor Hatchet’s gaze darkened: “Only ever leads songs, he said. Heh! You have all doomed yourselves, you and your friends, do you know this?”

‘They are not my friends!’ Garvin wanted to say but was interrupted by an excited diversion from on high.

“I’m just here for my yoghurt.” The giantess said. “Is that it, there?”

“Aye!” The man Hatchet replied. “Though I understand we may have to find some of the people who used to work here to make more of it!”

“No need.” The giantess bent down with breath-taking speed. “I know how. And what would this be? You haven’t been looting, I hope.”

She was referring to a large brown cloth sack that seemed to emit a most peculiar smell, carried by one of the soldiers.

“Our demands...” Garvin helplessly tried his luck but no one heeded him.

The rider with the sack spoke right over him: “’tis Mibeltube, this! Vicious stuff, outlawed. Ought to be burned!”

There was irritation in Janna’s voice: “Mibel-what?”

“Mibeltube.” Signor Hatchet explained. “The followers of Rashtullah abhor drink and burn this plant instead, inhaling the fumes. It makes a man feel becalmed and strange, hungry as well, or confused at times. Use too much of this and it plays evil on your humours, which is why the plant is outlawed in those lands such as heed the Twelve.”

“Is it now...” Janna seemed strangely intrigued. “I shall take that for safekeeping then. Now unto you, little man, you were saying something about demands?”

Janna’s gigantic attention shifted to him like a mountain bending to speak with a bug. It was so frightening that he forgot all he had meant to say for a moment.

“We desire only to be free and serve no foreign ruler, good or evil!” He began his task once the spinning of his mind allowed, well aware that any word he spoke might be his last.

But if he did not deliver this to her, surely the people of Honingen would kill him too. He was likely doomed either way.

To his surprise, however, she sensually closed her eyes and nodded: “Of course you do. This was inevitable. Please don’t be so afraid of me. I’m not the monster you think. Or I try not to be anyway.”

That had to be just a cruel trick, he thought, but somehow it gave him courage enough to repeat all that Florian Vulture had spoken.

“There’s a contradiction in there.” She pointed out when he was done. “You said no foreign ruler in the beginning but now it sounds like you want no ruler at all.”

She was very wise to see this, he had to concede. But there was a resolution.

“None who is not from Honingen,” He said, “which includes Her Highborn, Countess Franka!”

Janna pursed her gargantuan lips and seemed to chew her tongue, undoubtedly weighing in her mind whether or not to eat him.

“That is a teensy-weensy bit bigoted, I’m afraid. Well, unless there was a way to become a Honinger. I trust you don’t plan to lock your gates and never let anybody from outside into your city again, do you?”

The Vulture had spoken about trade, so Garvin could firmly shake his head in acknowledgement.

“All good then.” The giantess smiled down. “I hereby accept your terms. And I’m proud of you, but you shouldn’t stop there. There ist much and more that you must work on. But I appreciate your autonomy in this. Don’t be bigoted, though, and remember what I said at the tourney grounds. If I hear something about bigotry from this town I may have to come in here and have a word with you.”

He nodded even before remembering her words from earlier. Ever since Laura had trampled into Garvin’s life everything was on its head. He was separate from his wife, his children, his mother, his home and all the rest of it. There was happening so much that it was easy to become confused.

When he remembered what Janna had actually said at the tourney grounds, he also recalled the bodies of those black-skinned people who had been released from Galahan Palace’s service. They had been rounded up, butchered and robbed of the considerable wealth Janna had bestowed on them from Lady Franka’s coffers. This could bode badly for him.

But by that time she had already taken her prize and left, her heavy boots pounding cobblestones into the ground on her way out of the city. The man Hatchet, the soldiers, they were gone as well, travelling in her hand. Around Garvin in the houses, people started cheering.

He felt a bit of relief then, and a bit strange as well. It was unreal. By rights he should have been one with the street or fighting digestion in a godly belly. Unfortunately, the exaltation lasted only for a few moments.

It was a young man who started the violence, running out from a low house entrance and picking up a rock to cast it after Janna, even though she had been without reach within her first pavement-crushing step.

“Fuck off from our city!” He hollered after her, but if she heard him she chose to pay him no mind.

It could have ended there. Or maybe not, Garvin thought. Perhaps there were too many contradictions in the Vulture’s plans. Perhaps his ideas were too unheard of. But the moment they got what they wanted, the people turned Honingen into a giant pie and opposing groups started to carve out slices for themselves.

It was already unfolding when he made it back to the temple.

“Stop this folly and bend the knee, my Lord!” A well-dressed Travia priest in dark yellow that Garvin could not identify right away pleaded with the Vulture.

“We shan't!” The bigger man barked back.  “We got what we bargained for, didn’t we? And I am no lord!”

“Be that as it may, your…” The other replied. “Well, I happen to be provost of a temple, and you will address me with Your Reverence. That is the first thing. Secondly, you must see that this folly of yours cannot be allowed to continue! The city is going mad and our most holy jar is still missing!”

It was Travin Nosfolk then, Garvin concluded, provost of the Travia temple. The loss of the Jar of Holy Theria was still on people’s minds but had been pushed back a tad in light of constantly unfolding horrors. It was as though Honingen was haunted by demons, and on second thought, Garvin knew who those demons were.

“I’m going to give you that jar when it turns up, damn you!” Florian Vulture rose. “I have no time to deal with this just now! We have a city to rule, and now is the time for celebrations, not your damn nagging!”

Suffering not another word, the successful rebel turned away from seat and spotted Garvin at the entrance to the hall. His mood swung from disgruntlement to jubilation within a split second.

“Blaithin!” He cheered. “I cannot fathom what you must have told that big wench but it seems you were quite convincing! We are all in your debt, my friend!”

Garvin chewed his lip: “I conveyed only your words, Sire, as best as I could remember.”

“Humility is a virtue!” The Vulture paid a side glance to Travin Nosfolk who was watching on. “But too much is unbecoming of great men as you!”

“As you say.” Garvin bowed his head, unsure what else to do. “Then…”

The priest was not going to suffer being second to some lowly singer and interrupted him, sparing Garvin the embarrassment: “It is you who should practice humility, Vulture! Do not praise the day before evenfall! I have spoken at lengths with our Lady of Galahan to learn the nature of these beasts under whose boots we live now, and she has told me that the two of them are seldom of one mind. What one says might be counteracted by the other at a moment’s notice, and your lackey there happens to only have spoken with the one giantess they call Janna, markedly the more tranquil and peaceable one of the two! Returns the smaller one, we may well still face annihilation, unless you come to some reckoning on our situation. I plead you, Sir, do not throw away our lives so foolishly!”

Garvin’s heart dropped into his britches and he realized that what the provost said might well be true.

“Well then,” the Vulture grumbled after some thinking played out behind his beard, “Garvin Blaithin, it seems your golden tongue might have to do it again!”

It would have been a fit time to fall over and break his neck, Garvin thought, but as ever the gods were not so merciful. He could only nod and free the path for the rebel who went to celebrate his victory anyway. It wasn’t as though there was much choice in the matter, given that the whole city seemed to be celebrating regardless of what any doubter might say.

Not the whole city though, as it turned out right after they had made their way back to Travia square. There was a huge crowd around the Vulture and many folk wanted to touch him, be close to him, see this mighty man who seemed to have freed them from their oppressor.

But as one oppressor went, others stepped up to fill the role, like mummers in some farce that knew no ending. It might well have been that other men simply had other ideas for the city, but to Garvin's understanding these two things amounted to being one and the same.

The first of these men appeared with armed guards in tow, a gang of ragtag and bobtail armed to their rotten teeth with whatever they could find, challenging the Vulture from afar. What he said could only be heard when the mass of people had quieted down and the street became silent as a grave.

“You’re not from Honingen either, so we think you ought to go! You’re no ruler of ours! We don’t need rulers anymore! Now will you go peacefully, or must we kill you fist?!”

It was the end of the challenger’s speech but still sufficed to know what this was about. Garvin took a look around to see how many fighting men were on his side but finding little encouragement for his effort as many folk seemed to abendon their liberator as swiftly as they had flogged to him in the first place.

Florian Vulture nevertheless replied directly: “I am no ruler of yours, whoever you are! We rule ourselves in this city, in whichever way we please!”

“Aye,” the challenger spat onto the ground, “about that. It would please us rather you not be one of us.”

Garvin had learned his lesson and retreated from the Vulture’s side as quickly as circumstances permitted. He was no fighter, and the odds were bad.

“We’re all brothers here!” Florian shouted to everyone around. “Except for this man! He thinks he can snatch defeat from the jaws of victory and place himself over you! To arms then! Anyone who wants to live free, join me now!”

It wasn’t clear from where, Garvin certainly hadn’t seen it before, but through the ranks of Florian’s men a monstrous sword was passed, longer than a man but not as wide as the great swords that hung in some lords’ halls.

“That’s Cormac Cutler of Ingerimm Street!” Garvin heard it whispered nearby.

He found that a queer name for a sword before realizing that it was the name of Florian's challenger.

“I heard his wife left him when he fell on hard times, and then he lost his shop to the guild.”

“Horseshit! Been always a numbskull, that one. Bet he done lost it on dice!”

Whatever the specifics of this Cormac Cutler’s disposition, not even the arrival of the giant sword seemed to dissuade him, although some of his backers clearly wavered. There would be blood in the street any moment now, and Garvin wasn’t sure whether to stick around and watch it.

“Well, go on then, little man!” Florian Vulture shouted. “Soon you can watch the grass grow from below!”

The other had a long knife and pointed it: “I’ll pluck your feathers, Vulture!”

There was a feather on Florian's hat, but what bird it might have be belonged to was a question for more civilized occasions.

While Vulture and Cutler berated each other, his Reverence Travin Nosfolk had put himself into position half between the opposing parties: “Stop this madness now and come to your bloody senses!”

Hearing a priest swear, and one of such stature too, was offensive to good virtue, certainly. But it underscored how damned the situation was. It wasn’t bad enough yet, however, because at a series of shouts, another group entered the scene from behind Cutler’s position, pushing their way through onlookers and shoving them aside.

These were earnest craftsmen, one could see at once, brandishing the tools of their trade alongside arms of city militia such as spears, clubs and crossbows, indicating that they had raided at least one armoury. It was chaos. They were led by their guild masters of which there were quite many, in jackets emblazoned with their guild’s insignia. This group was still larger than Cormac’s.

“Step aside Cutler!” The greying guild master Conaill Glover stepped forth, leather knife in hand. “We’ve come to pluck the feathers of this Vulture once and for all!”

Garvin knew the man by way of having bought a pair of fur-lined gloves from him years ago. He still had them stashed away in Elia’s tower, although by now one finger had worn through.

“And what do you want, man?!” Florian Vulture challenged him. “Are you another one who does not see that all of us are brothers?”

“You’re no brother of mine, Vulture!” Glover replied. “And even amongst brothers are there are elders and youngers alike! One leads the other by rights! We have heard your notions of leadership, and we do not agree! The guilds have led Honingen’s fortunes since its founding, together with the temples and the city magistrate! We’re not doing away with that for your sake!”

As sensible as this was, it suffered from lack of imagination. There had been a city council including the guild masters before, headed by a magistrate tasked with putting their decisions into practice. However, it was undeniable that Franka Salva Galahan had really been the one pulling the strings.

‘Before you die.’ Garvin thought. ‘Before you die, take care of every matter. Don’t light your hearth, for cold is probably better. Put on your nicest pair of linen britches. See all seams, in case they’re needing stitches. Play dice and drink, and shout yourself a toast. For one grieves one’s selfish self the most. Do not expect anyone to mourn your dying. But if you don’t leave anything, they all start crying. And die on time, for women need their dresses. To show what blacks each raunchy wench possesses. And as the peril goes with such obsession, if you don’t die on time, they’re out of fashion!’

It brought a brief smile to his lips in spite of himself.

The altercation betwixt Cutler and Glover meanwhile found a very quick and violent ending when Vulture decended upon the man in the middle with his giant sword, cleaning him open from neck to navel in one foul swing. It wasn't an honourable manoeuvre from behind like that, but rebellions were seldom so, as a rule. This was accentuated by the fact that Florian had bodily shoved aside Travin of Norfolk, sending the old but well-revered man splashing into a pile of horse dung.

A woman screamed somewhere. Vulture was drenched in Cutler’s blood. He swung the blade like a broom, making the lesser men cower away in anguish but one got his face cut open and another his skull caved in. The Glovers shyed away from such carnage, and Garvin asked himself where Florian Vulture had been during Honingen's Nameless Day.

‘Oh aye, he was still a prisoner then.’

“The Goddess will be displeased!” Yet a new voice cried. “We are hers to kill! Lay down your arms and repent!”

The talking man was a preacher in sack cloth who had brought neither weapons nor retinue, only words. There was the crude picture of a naked woman drawn with quicklime on his chest.

The man with the open face wreathed and grunted with pain, but nobody helped him. They might have, in time, but just then Laura's voice could be heard, and she was rather wrothful. Everyone ran at once, as did Garvin. He was swept away.

It didn't matter. He ended up in some tavern which was so full with people that he couldn't even tell which one it was. In the room it smelled like death, somehow, as other people too started to notice. The body of a murdered man was soon removed with the knife still in the back of his head.

A true madness had gripped the city when the most recent riots had broken out. This dead man was probably not the only one.

But now, they were all dead anyway, surely. One could hear Laura argue with Janna for some time, and it seemed Laura would not come after all. Soon, men and women whispered that Janna had saved them, mercy prevailed over anger. The people rejoiced even more than before for a time.

But then Laura did come, and they finally understood the error of their ways.

-

Janna felt spaced-out, as though her mind was detached from her body. It wasn’t really true, of course. She was just high. Mibeltube, apparently, was what she and Laura had been looking for all along. The discovery was a monumental step in the right direction. It certainly made things bearable.

Apart from that, Janna finally had something to potentially help her combat the condition she was in. She had her yoghurt, from which to make more yoghurt. The process was super easy.

“Heat milk till it steams,” she had told Franka’s kitchen staff, “let it cool a little bit, add a little bit of the mother substance, cover it and let it rest next to a hearth for half a day. Stir regularly and don’t ever let it reach a boil.”

That was all that was required to make yoghurt, but it only worked if the bacterial culture was added to it from the already existing product. How to make the stuff from scratch, Janna had no idea, but she sensed that it was a good thing that in this medieval world, raw milk was the only kind that was available which was a real paradise for bacteria to grow in. Heat-treated milk did not make for good yoghurt, she remembered one of her biology professors explain. The making of it was now fully underway and she had already tasted a little bit from the batch she had taken from Honingen, just to be sure that it was truly what she was looking for.

And that was the even better part. She had had maybe a quarter teaspoon full, if even that much, and it had been divided up into two little batches because Furio resolutely insisted she try it with the honey he was carrying for some reason. And she could already tell that it was working as the feeling in her belly changed, the pain subsided somewhat. That made her extremely upbeat.

Laura, on the other hand, had not been upbeat at all, and even less about the fact that the inevitable rebellion in Honingen had finally happened. The - in this case literally - downtrodden had risen-up to reclaim their dignity and rule themselves and fulfil the destiny of all mankind. It was a rocky road, Janna knew, but was glad to witness this crucial step towards a more fair and equitable society.

“What?! These little shits go Che Guevara on the city and you sit here fucking around with yoghurt?!” Laura had screamed after learning about the situation.  

But Laura, more than most, was a sucker all kinds of distraction. When Janna had heard Hatchet’s description of the substance, she judged that what she had there was roughly akin to weed. And Laura took to it immediately, mitigating her anger.

And so, the question arose of how to consume it.

Laura exclaimed immediately: “We need a bong!”

They did not have a tremendous amount of the substance, however, probably enough for one good head. Janna herself was very inexperienced when it came to drugs. She knew the scary things they could do to the mind but had to concede that it was preferable to drinking alcohol multiple times a day as they did currently. She had tried weed a couple of times at parties that Laura had brought her to and gotten different results every time. Twice she had a brief period of laughing for no reason upon which she became tired, lethargic and uncomfortable. Once she had become very hungry, and another time she had drunk too much and the tobacco mixed into the joint made her so dizzy that she collapsed onto a chair and puked.

The Mibeltube grew in swampy areas, Furio recited as though from a lexicon, and could act as an aphrodisiac, a stimulant, a relaxant and a couple of other things. Mostly, though, it seemed to get people high, which was why it was outlawed, a fact Furio was very explicit about. Consistency-wise, it handled like the blossom of cattail, bulrush or corndog grass, which actually made it so big to the tiny people that it needed to be ground up in order to smoke it. To Janna, the individual bulbs were still a great deal smaller than grains of rice, making it awkward.

At once, Laura had carpenters summoned, which wasn’t easy since they could no longer draw from the resources of the city. She ripped out a thick, old tree, tore off the branches and told the people in attendance to hollow it toward one end and make a hole in the side at the other, whereby creating a pipe. To prevent the burning drug from being sucked into it and subsequently ingested, she intended to use fine chainmail from some soldier over an iron grate which in turn would have to be ripped out of some building.

When she put her mind to it, Laura could become incredibly resourceful.

The process of hollowing proved lengthy and tedious, however, as the tiny workers scrambled to do what was expected of them with knives, chisels and axes chopping away laboriously at the wood. Laura and Janna each tried their own luck with different tree trunks but ended up either ruining their workpiece by cracking it or destroying whatever tools they used, including two rather fine-looking swords.

“Damn this isn’t as easy as I thought.” Laura had said while biting her lip and looking despairingly at the young, slender boy who was head-first and waste-deep inside the tree trunk. “It’s gonna take forever.”

The beginning was easy enough but slowed down very quickly from there because there wasn't much room inside the trunk to create leverage and the knots in the wood from where branches grew could be unfathomably stubborn.

Then, Laura’s eyes had found the dragon.

Janna had had a good look at the creature and marvelled at it half in absolute awe and half very much afraid. Its features,  far as they were still intact, were mesmerizing, the wings, the horns, the red-golden scales, its mouth and eyes. Whereas the tree dragon had been more cute than unnerving, this thing was positively terrifying. Its teeth were so sharp that Janna ended up cutting her finger while opening its mouth. It was dead, however, crushed under Laura after trying to steal the gold that Laura had robbed, and there was a considerable hole torn in its belly with much of the organs missing.

The little Horasian Signor Hatchet was summoned to ascertain what kind of dragon this was. It was really the only thing to be done about it under the circumstances, seeing as Laura had already been able to make a number of useful findings about the creature, namely that it could spit fire, fly, use scary magic including the creation of illusions, talk directly into somebody’s head, as well as that it was too greedy for its own good.

“That’s the Achilles’ heel, I guess.” Laura had said. “Imagine, these beings could rule the whole planet if they wanted to, but they get preoccupied with meaningless treasure. And once they have enough of it, I guess they just sit on it forever, afraid that if they go ou, someone might come and steal some of it or whatever.”

When the words were translated to them, Furio and Signor Hatchet agreed with that assessment most thoroughly, although Signor Hatchet reminded them that according to ancient legend dragons had in fact once upon a time ruled the world. He furthermore named this one an Emperor Dragon, one of the largest and mightiest, albeit not the meanest he could name. That, however was a bit anti-climactic given the apparent ease with which Laura had destroyed the creature.

“It might be that this one was not yet fully grown.” Hatchet reasoned upon further inspection of the corpse. “But then again, this end result is not starkly surprising given how much bigger than it you are.”

Also, the whole thing hadn't actually been that easy, Laura reflected the account. If not for the gold, it might have easily escaped.

“Heck, if my stone had missed, it would have gotten away with it!”

And it may as well have used the illusion to do something horrible to Laura like burn her face, bite her eyeball or maybe set fire to her hair or clothing.

In fact, this seemed rather important to ascertain, but Furio laid waste to any worries: “Illusions can be quite mighty, yes! But if they had such potency, why, then there would be little need for a battlemage like me! A good illusion is as carefully concocted as a well-rehearsed mummers’ farce. Strong pain, injury or similar irritations from outside its sphere can shatter it.”

“Much like a stabbing at the theatre,” Hatchet explained with an apologetic glance at the wizard, “makes one remember what’s real.”

“It isn’t much use, dead.” Laura observed about the dragon when they had moved on to deal with the problem of how to consume their drugs. “And I bet it’s like fireproof by necessity.”

What she had in mind was absolutely disgusting. Janna had heard urban-legend-type stories of people smoking bugs and stuff like that, and she had once seen a video of someone smoking weed through the carcass of a fish. But this was real and in front of her eyes and Laura took the dragon, applied her lips to its mouth and tried sucking air through it.

There was no sound, but the remaining belly of the beast suddenly seemed to contract. A moment later, Laura had her tongue out and was spitting out tiny pieces of charcoal.

“Urgh!” She made and spent some time scrapping her tongue with her fingernails. “Bitter! That’s the boy it ate, by the way. I tried to save him but it burned him and ate him up. Urgh, I think I got a bit of other stomach contents as well.”

She cleaned her mouth in the lake around Galahan Palace afterwards, which gave her a different idea. Galahan palace had many hearths, and each had to have a chimney. Thus, the solution was obvious, health concerns be damned.

They still had the iron grate and a couple of fastened chainmail shirts put over the hearth so they would not inhale and choke on any solid bits of burning material. Other than that, however, they had found their method of consuming the Mibeltube at last.

Laura went first when the word got back that the servants had lit a fire beneath the Mibeltube in the hearth in question, and she leaned over the castle to take the smokestack delicately into her mouth. The thought of how unfathomably unhealthy this was shot through Janna’s mind, but such things were of no concern now. Laura sucked long and hard while being careful not to break the chimney. Then she coughed up thick, white smoke for a minute.

“Tastes like cilantro.” She wheezed bewilderedly. “But wow, this is some good shit.”

To Janna’s tongue it tasted rather more like ash and burning compost when it was her turn, and she coughed even harder than Laura had, as though her lungs had decided to quit their service and move somewhere else.

“We gotta mix it with some of that stuff Furio puffs all the time, maybe.” Laura pondered hoarsely while Janna coughed. “And by the way, I can’t believe I didn’t think of this earlier, what the fuck are we doing not smoking actual weed?! I mean, they got hemp, right? It’s what their ropes are made of! All we need is those long things when they blossom or something, after we dry ‘em up.”

“Not this time of year.” Janna replied, her throat itching.

Hemp - outside of some drug dealer’s closet under constant UV-lighting and airflow - flowered in late summer. On Earth, anyway. It wasn’t even certain that the species of hemp that grew on this planet would contain THC.

They went through what little Mibeltube they had after two small hits each. Janna worried that it would be insufficient, which proved erroneous when she suddenly noticed one of Franka Salva Galahan’s heralds in attendance, dressed up in a puffy, slashed medieval jacket along with silly, tight pantaloons, and started laughing as though she was looking at a clown.

Then Laura laughed too, so light-heartedly. All seemed to be well.

Further entertainment was provided by several guests and staff inside the palace who seemed to be affected by the substance, probably owing to Janna inadvertently blowing a little into the chimney before her second hit, filling the room that the hearth was in with smoke so much that it came up to the windows. Soon, two noblemen swore they had seen a ghost.

It was good times, peaceful and worriless for the moment, which was exactly what Janna had tried to achieve. Grumpy, mean, old Countess Franka Salva Galahan tried to put a fly in their ointment by stating to be unable to feed the two of them without the stores of Honingen, but Laura and Janna could only giggle about the old woman’s concerns.

Time somehow did not feel linear to Janna anymore, and she regained a sense of appreciation for the small things surrounding her that she had come to take for granted since crash-landing on Saturn Seven.

“We’re like billions of light-years from home and I am high as a kite.” Laura remarked with a broad smile that did not look entirely voluntary.

Janna was staring at her hands: “And we’re huge!”

“I know, right?” Laura giggled. “We’re fucking giants! Speaking of fucking giants, do you have any idea how awesome sex would feel right now?”

Janna got the hint but chose to ignore it, electing to marvel at the tiny people around her instead. At several instances during their journey, they had been surrounded by them so much that she had grown used to them. Now it felt like she was seeing them again for the first time.

“They’re so tiny!” She tried to let Laura know, which seemed very important at the time.

Laura’s response was slurred: “Totally. I’m so horny though, I wanna fuck one of them flat right now.”

While she giggled, Janna dealt her a slap to the shoulder. High or not, principles had to be upheld.

“I shared the Mibeltube with you to make you peaceful!” She scolded her friend. “Don’t be mean to them, just enjoy it, okay?”

“Kay.”

The two of them looked at each other and laughed. Then Laura leaned forward into a kiss. Janna wasn’t entirely opposed to it. She felt better. She felt happy. And they had finally found something peaceful to combat the boredom. Getting high all the time was probably ill-advised as well. But alternating between alcohol and Mibeltube sounded like something that might help them make it through until help arrived while also keeping Laura’s mind off killing, hopefully.

But in terms of sex, Janna was thinking about Steve. It was unrestrained this time, fantasizing to her heart’s content without stopping herself out of reservations or embarrassment. Her second choice would have been Dari. The tiny girl, if attainable, would have made for a wonderful pastime. And then, at her peak, Janna would squash her like a bug and be rid of her.

She realized she needed time alone with her fantasies and went to her sleeping bag with the excuse of being tired. The world was distant before her eyes anyway and she could no longer truly partake in conversation. Laura said something about more Mibeltube in the city, but Janna hardly recognized what she said.

-

Like a god on an anthill, Laura perched inside the city walls. Her arse was placed where the once lovely city hall had been, where Garvin had hidden with Cathal during Honingen’s Nameless day. What parts of the building had not thoroughly been flattened could not stand on their own and had toppled over in a cloud of dust. Garvin happened to see it with his own eyes. Anyone inside was probably beyond saving.

“I have a disease!” Laura proclaimed. “It’s called the Munchies and it can only be quelled by cheese! Bring me all the cheese you've got or I have to eat you instead! And you taste so damn good, mh, come here, you.”

Everyone with legs streamed to her. Not to treat, nor to fight but grovel in hopes of appeasing her. The people of Honingen wanted to right their error and beg her forgiveness so that she would not lay the city low. The rebellion had ended the very moment she set foot inside the walls again, and when she carelessly walked over anyone too slow or stupid to get out of the way, even the last dullard understood that whatever terms Janna had agreed to were worthless. Janna was also nowhere in sight and to the people’s minds, Laura could only have come to do her worst.

Laura’s face, meanwhile, did not strictly appear wroth- or vengeful, only strangely flushed. Likely she knew as well as anyone else that without divine intervention the city stood no chance against her, especially now after Florian Vulture had divided the people against each other at large. It had been abject chaos yet again with looting and all sorts of crime playing out amidst celebrations and attempts to restore a semblance of order. Garvin had not partaken in any of it, far as he could muster.

Before his eyes now, people went down Laura's gullet by the dozens and her fingers were red with the blood of those she had clumsily squashed.

“Wow, cheese and people,” she mumbled with strange admiration and bulging cheeks.

She was eating very quickly, stuffing her face and barely giving herself time to chew. It wouldn’t have surprised Garvin if half of those who entered her mouth were sent down alive amongst pulped corpses and hastily provided food, only to die in the immense darkness of her belly.

And she did not give a crabapple about whom she ate. They were all presented to her, everyone who played a role in the half-day rebellion and still lived, Vulture, Glover, all of them, and many Garvin didn’t even know had played any part at all. Laura took no note of the speeches that were made, the pleas, the accusations and confessions. She just grabbed every- and anyone along with the men and women next to them, and in her mouth they went never to say another word. Vulture went in as one of the first, but probably only because his booming voice annoyed her.

Men, women, young, old, crippled, healthy, tall, short, she ate them all, and still people kept on coming. It was her price for their betrayal, was one way of putting it. And of course, the man who had composed the song for the rebellion and brokered the false agreement with Janna could not be spared. Within an astoundingly short period of time Garvin had become as famous in Honingen as a painted dog in a village, and while he would have loved for this to have happened at any point in the life he once had, just now it was about to get him killed.

He had already been seized by both arms and was dragged to Laura’s mighty form to be devoured, but as it happened there was a line forming with more offenders to be offered up along with those who brought them sacrificing themselves for the city. His britches were stained with his urine and he couldn’t walk on his own.

He kept saying “no, no, no, no, no” and could watch himself do so from behind his eyes. It was as though his life was already over. He could not even hear his captors until one of them thwacked him over the head with an open palm.

“I said now you’re getting munched, singer!”

‘Yes, you and me both, my friend.’ He wanted to say, but all that came out was “no, no, no, no…”

He wasn’t crying though, which made him a little bit proud. Just as he wondered how Cathal was doing he saw the boy between Laura’s fingers, travelling up to his doom. The giantess took no more note of him than she did any of the others, and Garvin never saw Cathal again.

‘Well, maybe we’ll meet later in one state or another.’

He made a prayer in his head that his children might have a good life without him. And, yes, his wife too. They deserved as much. Then it went right quick as Laura just so happened to eat more from Garvin’s side of the masses.

“Wow, there’s so many of you.” Laura said, rubbing her belly.

The group before Garvin was squashed together in between giant female fingers and lifted off into the air, but they became Laura’s last nibble for the time being.

“Phew, I’m stuffed!” She proclaimed with an accentuated belch. “Maybe I’ll eat some more of you when I wake up. Find more Mibeltube now.”

The sight of her standing up and rising into the sky was enough to make any man’s head spin.

‘But it was my turn.’ Garvin thought queerly. ‘Don’t go! You have to eat me too! I was one of them! I was…’

Maybe he should have sung a song.

But Laura stood and started walking forward without a care in the world. People were less than dirt to her. Her sole was coming for him, never knowing he was there.

‘It seems that Phex, seeing he could not make fools wise, made them lucky.’

He thought of his children once more before the shadow of death engulfed him.

-

Laura fought with herself over whether she still wanted to have sex, which in lack of Janna could only mean masturbation with some unwilling participants. Hopefully, Janna was asleep at least, so she wouldn’t interfere. But Laura had eaten so much cheese and so many people that she almost didn’t feel like it anymore.

‘Just in case, though.’ She thought and scanned the ground.

Bending down wasn’t good for her balance in her current state, she found. It made her seasick.

She got back up without any catch to show for, unsure what had made her bend in the first place. She had stepped into something that turned out to be a bunch of people who hadn’t gotten out of her way for some reason. It was curious why everyone was congreagated here as well.

‘I’m high.’ She thought. ‘I should stop thinking things.’

It made her head spin. Her way into the city was a swath of destruction. Somehow, she had managed to step on almost every house along her way, and she had put a hole in the red brick walls on top of that. It was truly a bad idea to be in the city while high, but then again it was the only place with enough cheese.

‘I hope I didn’t kill anyone important. Oh, well.’

Janna would be mad, though, so Laura wanted to make sure to get out with as little ruckus as possible, a notion she promptly disbanded when coming across a few scavengers picking through the rouble who were now running away from her.

“Why weren’t you at the...at the thing?!” She scolded them.

Her stride was a bit uneven but she managed to flatten any scavengers she saw. The whole city was still at her disposal, but whether to dispose of it was a rather big decision. So, she decided to wander the streets, carefully more or less, looking for tiny citizens, all the while avoiding the giant blob of them near the centre. Hunting didn’t work very well when the prey was already congregated and willing.

‘There is a goddess in Honingen, and she stomps anyone in her way.’ She sang in her mind. ‘And she gobbles up your family if she feels like doing so. No matter what you say.’

Even in her own head it sounded off, but maybe Garvin the singer could make it work later. The drug had run its course from a brief euphoria over hunger to a docile state of relaxation, all under tremendous confusion.

‘Beats being sober, I guess.’ She thought while making a tiny girl meet the cobble stones under her sneaker. ‘I want to butt-crush someone.’

That someone was quickly found, but Laura was so eager to turn around and bring her butt cheeks to bear that she didn’t even get a good look at them.

Everything felt a tad more intense while high, but as her rear end slammed into the street and tore down half another gabled, beautifully whitewashed house, she could hardly feel anything besides the impact.

When she turned to look at her most recent piece of destruction, she found herself face to face with a tiny young man in black robes and a mob of mouse-grey hair on his head. He was sitting on an adjacent red tile roof, watching her.

“Hey.” She said. “Don’t be afraid. I think I’ve forgotten what’s fun about squishing you for the moment.”

“Ah!” The figure nodded. “Fear not, it will come back to you!”

His voice made her remember and her stomach turned.

“You?!” She shouted, her eyes wide and her heart racing.

In the moment, she couldn’t really remember why she and Janna had decided that this guy was evil, but she knew she had to destroy him immediately and quickly. When her hand came to swat him, however, he crossed his arms above this head and it felt like there was an invisible pane of glass over him that she couldn’t destroy. It hurt her hand, though.

“Ow!” She howled and drew back.

Her skin wasn’t cut or anything, the impact came just so unexpected. He still had his arms crossed and she could feel the strange invisible thing protecting him, hard as glass but with no temperature or texture to it which was weird and creepy, as though the air had suddenly decided to become hard.

“You’re freaking me out!”

“Oh, don’t bother!” He replied in an annoyed tone when she tried to get under the invisible glass from the side, upon which he simply moved his arms, shifting the barrier with them.

Therefore, she used both hands, trying to get at him from behind, but when her left hand almost had him he dropped his arms, nodded and disappeared.

“Why are you trying to kill me?!” He shouted at her from the other side and further away. “Have I done you any harm?”

Had he? She couldn’t remember.

“You’re evil!” She spun around and crawled forward straight through two adjacent medieval houses.

He was just out of arm’s reach: “I will disappear again if you try to swat me, you know? And if I’m evil then what do you call yourself?”

“You’re not my friend!”

She looked at him amongst the sea of rooftops, even while trying to remember why she was going to kill him in the first place. Their first encounter had been outside Winhall in the rain.

‘Or in the night? Both?’

He had told her something useful back then, but she didn’t recall whether it had truly been useful or just some sort of deception. Fighting a magical being was bad enough, as her freaky encounter with the dragon had already taught her, but doing it high was just dumb.

“Well, might be that’s where you’re wrong!” He offered lightly.

She didn’t think so, although it was hard to remember what they were talking about.

“You opened that gate in the Farindel!” She accused him, finally remembering. “You let the dragons out! One attacked me, just today!”

He sounded a little bit surprised: “Truly? What happened, did it hurt you?”

“Not as much as I hurt it.” She replied coldly. “But it could have…wait, you didn’t know?”

She couldn’t tell why she thought he would have known, but judging by the tone in his voice, he didn’t. Perhaps she had just found out something useful. She could only hope she would remember it when the time came.

“Nothing is certain.” He replied quickly. “And yes, I opened that gate. But you have to see that being evil and powerful isn’t very fun without both components. I mean, you of all people should know that. Besides, I gave your other wizard friend his powers back too. Isn't that cool?”

“Maybe Janna thinks so.” She said, finding the conversation increasingly awkward. “I don’t care about...”

Her chin hit her collarbone the moment those words left her mouth. She was high and hadn’t noticed, before.

“You can speak my language?”

She had spoken English the entire time, and with an alien of this strange planet.

“I acquired your tongue, aye.” He replied. “Thought it useful, busy though I am. You are very interesting, you and your friend. It’s why I sought you out on this day.”

His tone wasn’t evil even in the slightest, utterly non-confrontational, which was unnerving because it kept putting Laura at ease.

“Well, you…you speak it very well.” She had to admit. “But it won’t save you, you know.”

“I believed I had already established that I am beyond saving. In any event, I won’t perish today. I came to tell you that there are ogres on the road to Honingen.”

Her eyes shot out into the distance, north and north-west where Nostria was.

“Ah, not those ogres.” He told her. “They are coming from the south, and I may not be entirely blameless on that count.”

She had to squint to focus her thoughts somehow: “You sent them here? Why?”

He lowered his head a little: “It seemed you needed assistance. I mean, you've got both your hands full ruling this little kingdom.”

That insulted her and she shouted: “My kingdom is fine! I have crushed the rebellion already!”

“Aye and eaten it.” He replied. “Ain't the only rebellion to worry about, though, and the most worrisome you do not even know. I merely wish you to know that the ogresses approaching from the south can help you. They are not your foe.”

He was speaking exactly as Laura liked to speak the local tongue, she noted, teetering between the swollen medieval and graceless, lazy modern ways.

“If you sent them then they probably are.” She said. “I should kill every last one of them.”

He seemed to shrug: “Well, in that case, forget what I said. And ignore this too: stay away from the Farindel. The hero is already in motion. He will deal with the Red Curse. Truth be told, it grows so powerful that it scares even me. I can’t have it interfere with my plans. That is all I came to say. We will meet again, but for now I have bigger things to take care of.”

There was quite a lot she wanted to say and ask but before she could, he nodded once more and was gone, vanished into thin air. Laura was left sitting in her city like a complete idiot. Her high had turned into a bit of a horror trip that left her with knots in her belly, and even more questions than before. The only thing she knew now was that the black wizard did not know everything.

‘That’s a good thing, right? Yeah, that’s good. It’s good!’

He had to be fallible, at least. Perhaps she had tried too hard not to think about him, before.

‘Not like it would have helped, anyway.’

Just in case he was still there somehow she crawled to the house he had sat on and pulverized it under her fist, and each adjacent one too for good measure.

Sleep was the only option of escape that presented itself and she sought it without any other detours. Evening was still an hour or so away, but that didn’t matter. Janna was asleep too, even though she was only half way in her sleeping bag with her giant breasts showing. Laura tugged her in and took a long look at her. Then she made her own bed directly next to Janna. She was cold and wet and dirty. Everything sucked. At least at the spaceship there had been bed, not to mention a roof.

She was awoken the moment she closed her eyes, or at least felt that way on account of dreamlessness. It had to have been an hour at least, however. When going to bed stoned, one woke stoned as well, and this was no exception. She was extremely confused.

A herald was trumpeting alarm, loud and anoying and very close. From the side, Janna’s hand and arm came into view along with the world’s most annoyed grunt. The flat of her hand pounded an empty piece of ground before hitting the herald square on top as though she had mistaken him for an alarm clock. His trumpeting seized at once and she smashed to bits every last bone in his body. She was probably too drunk with confusion to notice. There were other people too.

“Aw, shit.” Janna groaned, blinking and wiping the corpse off her hand. “What’s going on?”

“It’s just the ogres.” Laura heard herself say. “Go back to sleep.”

Janna wiped her eyes and yawned: “The hell’s ogres doing ‘ere so fucking late? Urgh! Wait, what?!”

“It’s okay!” Laura tried her luck. “They’re not here to attack us.”

Part of her mind was awake, but the part that controlled her body and speech seemed to be still sleeping.

Janna came awake fully now. She looked a bit sick and tired beyond reparation, but mostly alarmed.

“Where are they?”

Far below them and relatively safely out of reach, a tiny man cleared his throat: “Err, there is a noble visitor here to see the Queen! He wishes to speak with her immediately.”

The speaker turned out to be Signor Hatchet, although what he meant by that was unclear. Galahan Palace was stuffed full with nobility none of whom were powerful or bold enough to have Laura woken for their pleasure. It would seem she had to make an example.

That was when said nobleman arrived, riding on his monstrous, green and blue barded warhorse and glittering in his silver armour.

“Who puts himself to sleep this early when there’s a war on?!” The Duke of Nordmarken demanded with a voice so loud it was almost disturbing. “And why’s there fire in your town?”

A quick look confirmed it. At least five great fires were consuming Honingen.

Hatchet filled in quickly: “They broke out after your visit, your Grace, but I was led to believe they were well under control.”

They didn’t look well-controlled at all, unless controlling them meant making them bigger. But fires in the dark always looked bigger than they were, because of the glow.

Janna demanded: “Where are the the fucking ogres?!”

“I was wrong.” Laura blinked to get her eyelids unstuck. “They’re not here yet. Forget I said anything.”

‘Am I awake, or am I dreaming?’

She pinched herself hard to kick her brain into motion. The duke of Nordmarken, Hagrobald, was still there. Now she tried to remember whether or not she had resolved to kill him.

“Do you want to deal with Hagrobald or go put out the fires?” She gave the choice to Janna.

Janna was unappreciative: “What ogres?!”

‘Fuck my life.’

“Nice of you to come visit, my lord. I will be with you in a moment.”

She didn’t feel like talking and the evening air was bitingly cold. They hadn’t built a fire. She slipped into her shoes without putting socks on and went to snuff out the flames in Honingen.

It wasn’t obvious how things had started but she was too tired to play detective over it. Some fires burned where she had stepped on houses, possibly due to ambers from their hearths. But other fires were burning where she hadn’t set foot before, causing ever more unnecessary destruction to the poor city.

Perhaps it was time to move on. The Honinger citizenry was devoutly loyal now at least, if she remembered correctly how they had offered themselves up to repent.

When the fires were out and even more buildings, people and she didn’t care what else had found their end under her feet, she returned to Galahan Palace.

Janna greeted her with a frown: “Seriously, I need to know why you thought the ogres were coming.”

Laura fained a shrug: “Bad dream, I guess. What did Hagrobald want?”

He was no longer present, although parts of his sizeable retinue were still at the Palace’s drawbridge with their horses and equipment. His departure did not come unwelcome.

“You’ll never believe it.” Janna yawned in response. “He caught wind of that joust you wanted to do and dropped everything in order to come here, says his army will have to march a while without him. He wasn’t pleased he didn’t get an invitation, by the way.”

Laura wanted to laugh but it came out so wooden that it sounded like a little dog barking.

“Don’t think that’s gonna happen after all that’s gone down.” She said, dreading Janna’s reaction when she would see Honingen by day. “Uh, just so you know, I got the munchies and ate a bunch of people in the city. The rebellion is over and it seems the little man has lost...again.”

Janna stared at her for a moment, then grimaced, but apparently she was too exhausted for a big fight. That was lucky, but it might still come later.

What weighed even heavier on Laura’s mind was that weird black wizard, however, and the strange things he had said.

‘Or did I dream that?’

“My stomach’s getting better.” Janna said as if to change the subject. “That yoghurt was just the thing.”

Laura tried to smile but failed: “Glad to hear it. That black wizard came visit me, I think. I’m not...”

The plan - formed within a split second - was to use Janna’s non-confrontational episode to come clean and get it done and over with, but she was immediately interrupted.

“Did you ask after Steve and Christina?”

Laura bit the inside of her cheek. It hadn’t even occured to her. She hadn't asked from whom he had learned English, either.

“No,” she shook her head and lowered it to hide her emotions, “there was no time.”

“Then what did he want? Did you fight with him?”

“I tried but he kept disappearing. I don’t know, maybe I squished him. Or not. Anyway, he wanted to tell me stuff for some reason. Like we shouldn’t worry about the Red Curse. Also ogres coming from the south.”

“Wait, you said you dreamt that.”

Laura gave another shrug, studying the fading ground in the darkness before looking up again: “But I managed to figure something out. He doesn’t know everything.”

“Good job, Laura.” Janna sarcastically shook her head.

Laura felt rather differently about her observation and suffered a stab to her pride.

But Janna went on acting all adultly: “You know what this means, right? We need to turn anything that comes from the south into a smoothie. And we gotta start really worrying about the Red Curse. We’ll check it out, first thing tomorrow.”

Laura didn’t want to. It sounded like work.

Plus: “I don’t know, he sounded so completely genuine. Maybe he really meant it.”

Janna won easily: “Wanna stake our lives on it?”

That settled the issue. Laura was too tired to care anyway.

After crawling back to sleep, she awoke again in the next instant, but she only felt awful for a split second. It was much later now, or rather earlier. She and Janna had gone to sleep absurdly early. In the east, the sun of Saturn Seven’s star system wasn’t visible yet, but she could feel that its first light wasn’t far away.

“Morning.” Janna greeted her softly.

“Morning.” Laura replied.

It was weird.

They hadn’t been woken this time. And after what Janna had sleepily done to that herald the day before, it wasn’t exactly surprising. Candle, hearth and taper light danced behind the thick glass of Galahan Palace’s windows as the servants were probably busy preparing the day.

“I did something bad last night.” Janna said timidly and completely without context.

Laura had to chuckle: “Yeah, you smashed that herald like a snooze button, only you accidentally hit dismiss.”

Maybe Laura should eat his family for breakfast, just to make sure they were taken care of.

“Well, that too, but it isn’t what I meant.” Janna frowned. “I killed Signor Hatchet.”

All the pleasantness that came with the unusually early sleep and rise vanished at once.

“Why did you do that?!”

“It was an accident!” Janna swore. “I don’t know, I woke up all groggy and I got so horny that I couldn’t help myself. I remembered what you said and I had him summoned but I must have accidentally ripped his head off with my fingernail. I feel awful about it.”

Hatchet had been a capable guy and reasonably useful, not to mention extremely important to the Horasians, apparently. Laura had abused him once as well, so Janna must have thought it was okay. At least she was sorry about it.

“It’s alright.” Laura said. “Shit happens.”

She’d only choose to be mad about it if Janna would decide to be mad about the thing in the city, so the guy might actually prove to be more use dead than alive. Thinking about how easily tiny people died made her want to kill one just for sport.

That was when she remembered Duke Hagrobald Guntwin of the Big River.

“Duke Hagrobald came yesterday, right?” She asked.

Janna nodded: “Yes. That tourney business.”

‘Right.’ Laura thought. ‘At least he doesn’t want anything important.’

Important things were starting to annoy her again.

She said: “We should check if they found more Mibeltube in the city.”

This time Janna shook her head firmly: “No way. We grab a bite to eat and then we go north. We need to check out that Red Curse. Maybe it’s a fungus or something and I can find a fix. We should take Furio with us, though.”

Laura conceded wordlessly and so decision was made.

-

Hatchet’s chambers had been in Honingen’s city hall. Then Laura had sat on Honingen’s City Hall, flattening the building and anything inside, reducing it to rubble and kindling. This was bad. News of the man’s demise had reached Furio unspeakably early in the morning, and since he was Horasian too, the task of picking up Hatchet’s mantle seemed to logically fall to him until such time as a replacement could be arranged.

This required Furio to familiarize himself with Hatchet’s work, and it wasn’t entirely clear what the man had been doing, or how. There were lots of parchments to dig up for his grumpy daytallers but working through which belonged to which was a thing only he could do himself. He had a desk for this purpose, right on the market square and illuminated by lanterns. Soldiers of Galahan surrounded him, including his ever-present protector, the frog-faced Immen Knight Sir Sion Gramwick who kept nodding off atop his horse. There were many armed men in the city to begin with, after the fires the night before, the revolts, the rebellion, the living dead and all the other terrors.

Laura had cut a swath of destruction from City Hall to the walls. It was highly unusual, but just now it was possible to see the red brick from Furio’s vantage point. There was a lot of rebuilding to do.

To do his small part in this matter, Furio had told Dari to bury the Jar of Holy Theria right in this very rubble he had men digging through, tasking his workers with looking for parchments and such, but also taking a close look at any jar they’d find.

“Who knows?” He had quipped. “Might be, we get our our holy jar back!”

It was a tad heavy-handed, but japes bore in themselves all manner of deniability, even if nobody laughed. At least he could be reasonably confident that this quest wouldn’t fail, which was more than he could say about practically everything else.

So far, the men had dug up three torn und crumpled dispatches Furio did not understand a word of, one thing about the harvest of grains, one about general inventories, as well as a general order to all land holders of Albernia to produce food by any means necessary, and a particular order to allow their peasants the use of acorns from royal woods to fatten their pigs. The newest piece of writing was a scribbled note, reading: “Wine Turon Taladan.”

While Furio was wondering whether all of Hatchet’s work was dealing with shortages, a worker arrived with a new piece of parchment.

“Found this small one, milord.” The young man mumbled as though he had eaten the thing out of the mud rather than digging. “Probably nothing, but gots a fancy seal on it.”

Furio took it, nodded and smiled to see the man off to his works. The seal proved to be a winged B, marking it as a delivery of the Beilunker Riders, who were among messengers what Stoerrebrandt was among trading houses, enjoying a jubilant reputation. They were, in fact, organized like a mercenary company, had their own school and were said to carry messages through storms, pestilences and wars with fanatic fervour – all at a hefty price.

This on its own seemed rather unremarkable. If the city’s own riders were for one reason or another unsuccessful or deemed not reliable enough, the countess or city magistrate might well have frequented the Beilunker’s services. But this piece of parchment was minuscule, such as those that were tied to the legs of pigeons. A station system of messenger pigeons such as the Horasians possessed was not established in Albernia, except for Havena, perhaps. And the seal was unbroken.

The winged B wasn’t the original seal that kept the scroll rolled up, the job being instead done by an unstamped blob of green wax. Green - the colour of Horas.

Fearing nothing, the wizard cracked the seal with his fingernails and unrolled the tiny scroll.

‘Hard to confirm. Need time. Keep eyes open. Report everything. Burn the letter.’

Furio felt a vein bulge in his forehead. Though undeniably important-sounding it was impossible to know what was meant by the words without knowing more about the original message. The signature was so bad that he could not tell what it was, rendering it useless as well. Was this just what the secretive whisperings of spymasters looked like, or something that concerned him too? Nevertheless, he took a moment to memorize the words as best he could before holding the parchment into the nearest lantern. The flame flickered, then the letter scorched. But as the fire consumed it, more words became visible beneath the other words, written in an invisible ink.

He shouted out in anguish and pressed the parchment on the table, beating at the flames with his hand. There were only three hitherto invisible things visible now, right next to the burned bit, two words and a comma.

‘truly he,’

Furio chewed his lip in desperation, cursing himself for letting part of the hidden message be devoured. He held the parchment back to the fire, carefully not to burn it this time but only heating it as apparently made the ink visible. Gradually more words formed, a darker shade of brown than the parchment around.

‘...truly he, all necessary preparations must be made. Do your part. If possible, kill on sight!’

Then there was the same signature as before. Furio grabbed a strand of hair from his scalp and tore it out.

“H-h-hey, I found one!” A man shouted from the flattened rouble then. “Is this it? Looks like it, doesn’t it? Not broken, at least.”

Other men were able to confirm and in a heartbeat everyone was shouting.

“The jar, the jar! We found the jar! It was here all along! The jar, our holy jar!”

Two of the youngest diggers came over to him with shining faces: “Milord wizard! They found the holy jar! Rejoice! Now our luck will turn around, you’ll see!”

But Furio could only offer them a tired smile that felt like his cheeks were leaden. He needed sleep. It was almost morning.

Sir Sion Gramwick awoke in the saddle and commanded the precious object be given to him at once. The affair developed a whole life of its own that made all of them forget all about everything else.

“Celebrate all you must.” Furio declared. “But do not neglect your duties! Gather all parchments and have them brought to my chambers at the palace. Let nobody else lay eyes upon them, on pain of death!”

‘I am old and grumpy.’ He thought, wondering again how in the world he had aged so quickly.

He had felt almost like a young man, still, when he had been stationed in Nostria. And he had been strong then, whereas now he travelled in a litter belonging to a woman more than twice his age.

The reason why couldn’t have been made clearer than by what awaited him back at Galahan Palace. Laura and Janna were out and about unusually early, doing their morning routines by the river while at the palace the breaking of their fast was hastily prepared. After what Laura had done the night before, it seemed to Furio that the servants, carters and cooks involved in the endeavour looked even more haunted than usual.

‘They fear they’ll be eaten.’

The more reasonable estimates claimed that Laura had consumed close to four hundred souls the night before. Four hundred. Devoured. Gone. Swallowed and digested and of no more use than the small amount of time their bodies satiated the giant girl. And never to be seen again except in form of a big brown mass of excrement.

That reminded Furio of a grotesque story he had overheard. At the ruined City Hall, one soldier had spoken to another who had quietly lamented the early duty. The other told him that they were lucky because others had been dispatched to resolve a dispute between some Boron priests and a horde of angry peasants, squabbling over a piece of giant waste.

“These peasants,” the soldier had laughed while the other started giggling, “they want to throw it on their fields to help their crops grow. And the priests, heh, they want…heh, heh, they want to…burry it! Ah, ha, ha, ha! Imagine that! Heh, here lies such-and-such, resting in shit, ah, ha, ha, ha!”

Furio wasn’t entirely sure of the priests’ wisdom in this regard, but the whole matter was such an abject absurdity that he couldn’t blame the soldiers for laughing, even if he himself had only been cold and tired and not amused at all.

When he entered the palace via the lowered drawbridge, he noted the Nordmarkers who had arrived the night before. Apparently, there was a peace now, or a truce at least. The accounts differed, depending on who was asked. What seemed certain was that the large Nordmarker army was now creeping toward Horasian lands rather than Albernian, even while Albernia was supposed to be a part of the Horasian Empire. Worse yet, to make sure it stayed part of the Horasian Empire was a task that after Hatchet’s untimely passing now fell to Furio.

It almost made him want to pull out more of his hair, while also presenting him with the delicacy of how to interact with the Nordmarkers. Was he their foe as a Horasian, or was he neutral, as part of governing Albernia seemed to implicate? He liked none of it, not that it helped the matter.

“Milady wants, wizard.” The guard at the drawbridge had him know nonchalantly. “Go to her at once.”

And sure enough, no sooner had he stepped into the small,  crammed, crowded and busy yard was he intercepted by Sir Meredin Tibradan. The foremost amongst the Immen Knights wore full attire, most notably the poison green surcoat with a wasp on his breast in silver thread, as well as a cloak in Galahan green fastened by a clasp enamelled in red and with a golden honeycomb on it.

The man was a calm-tempered and honourable fellow of fifty-one years, far as Furio knew, with a fatherly face salted and peppered with stubble. Today, however, he looked a bit like Furio felt; tired, burned-out, like butter spread over too much bread.

“Master Wizard,” The knight bowed respectfully, “my lady expects your pleasure in her solar. At once, if you would.”

Furio nodded to Sir Sion to let him know that he was well enough protected for the nonce, upon which the big frog waddled off to get breakfast.

At the same time, a large, hairy man in undertunics voiced his displeasure: “Aye, and little good to be found there, witcher!”

Furio found the sudden intermission very befuddling, but Tibradan waved him on.

Nevertheless, he couldn’t deny himself the question: “Uh, what was that about?”

Sir Meredin spoke with a hushed voice while they hurried up a small round stairwell usually used by servants: “Duke Hagrobald is displeased that he has to leave the palace, My Lord. And he is even more displeased that the other nobles are leaving too. He rode all the way here for the tourney.”

A tourney that wouldn’t take place without participants, Furio thought, although it was news to him that the thing had been apparently cancelled. He hadn’t intended to partake in the spectacle in any capacity whatsoever, but it seemed a grave dishonour to Honingen and its countess for it not to take place like this.

The question of why was at the tip of his tongue, but Sir Meredin wasn’t really the man to ask this. It had to be the financial burden, Furio reasoned with himself. Feeding Laura and Janna was bad enough while Honingen and its surroundings were intact. With the city severely damaged, the war and its lack of trade, the rebellion, the living dead and all of those things it was possible to see why Franka was no longer willing or able to host this great expensive flurry of nobility as well. Hosting royalty and nobility at the same time was already ruinous under normal circumstances and could only be attempted by the richest and mightiest nobles of the land. It wasn’t unheard of that outbreaks of disease were invented to keep visitors at bay and save coin.

As he climbed the steps and his legs began to cramp, he wondered if this meant that he would be thrown out as well. It would certainly be inconvenient to take over Hatchet’s duties without the use of his own chamber. But then again, perhaps it might be good to get out from under Franka Salva Galahan’s wrinkly nose.

The hallway they entered after the stairs was busy with servants packing the belongings of their betters and preparing them for the voyage home, while those self-same betters were loitering about, unsure what to do. There was a general unease in the air, as though they were on the eve of a great battle.

That was when a new notion made his heart freeze: ‘What if the countess wants Janna and Laura gone too?’

She couldn’t be this stupid, surely, and furthermore she had to realize that it wasn’t within Furio’s power to make promises in this regard. Certainly, she wanted them gone as much as anyone, provided they could think and breathe at the same time. But she had to know that this would only happen at Laura’s and Janna’s whim, and until such time all had to suffer what they must.

Then again, he remembered bitterly, she had already made allusions to no longer being able to feed the giantesses the day before, so it would seem that she was already laying groundwork.

Sir Rondrian of Honeyfield had the door to the countess’ solar and admitted both wizard and commander without so much as a question. Inside, Franka Salva Galahan was breaking her fast. Her grandson, Ardan Jumian, and his wife, the radiant lady Devona of house Fenwasian, were sitting beside her but looked too tired to eat. Ardan was wearing chainmail and sword, and the gown that lady Devona had picked for this occasion seemed more like a travel coat than anything else.

By rights they should have broken their fast with their guests, down in the great hall, Furio knew well. But the guests were being thrown out.

Sir Lechmin of Highrock, another Immen Knight, guarded the room from the hearth. This was a tad unusual, if Furio was any judge, and perhaps related to the sudden influx of Nordmarkers in the Palace.

“Ah, the wizard!” Franka’s eyes flashed when he and Sir Meredin entered.

“My lady!”

Furio bowed deeply. It seemed wise not to vex this woman in her state. The countess put down the bread roll she had been gnawing on and fixed him with a calculating stare.

The awkward silence that followed was only broken up by Ardan Jumian: “It is nice to see you again, My Lord Mage. I hope your work in the city has not left you cold.”

He sounded hollow, but lady Devona’s eyes widened: “Oh! My Lord Wizard, you must be freezing! Come warm yourself by the hearth!”

Just by the fact that a woman such as her would be concerned for his wellbeing made Furio hot enough to sweat. He hoped he wouldn’t blush too obviously.

“Is he that, truly?” Countess Franka snapped out of her silence. “Is he truly a wizard? Why, and here I thought wizards could work magic!”

“Grandmother!” Lady Devona turned to her in alarm, and even Ardan Jumian seemed surprised.

Furio took a wild guess and lowered his head: “I could not prevent any of that which happened. And for that, My Lady, I am sorry. Truly.”

“Ah, a sorry wizard!” Countess Franka replied, her tongue dripping with acid. “Well, I'd say that brings the innocents back to life, but we wouldn't want to have that all over again, would we.”

She sounded hurt, but it was the wound in her purse that pained her most, Furio suspected unbiddenly. Perhaps it was an ill judgement. When Laura's recent massacre had been implicated, Ardan Jumian grimaced and stared at his plate. Laura’s actions did not sit well with him either, which was unsurprising. Lady Devona seemed to be more mature. Her face was a mask, impossible to tell what was behind it.

‘But a valiant knight might go and slay the beast that does such things to innocents.’ Furio realized. ‘Or die in the attempt.’

Ardan Jumian Galahan was young but already possessed knighthood and a markedly Rondrian reputation. He had been page to the court of Invher ni Bennain in her day, and had fought the previous Butcher of Honingen, Count Jast Irian Crumold. The longer Furio stayed at Galahan Palace the more he learned of these things. And it showed that Franka’s true worries might be of a less monetary nature than he had suspected initially, at least in this particular matter.

If not Laura and Janna then she might have to send her valiant heir away, but Laura had made it abundantly clear in the past that she would view such a thing as treachery. She wanted the boy close so she could count on Franka’s loyalty, and she wanted the granddaughter, Jasinai, within her reach as well, although no such undertaking had this far materialized to Furio's knowledge.

“My lady,” He decided to skip the lengthy, clever and trap-laden conversation Franka had no doubt prepared for him, “you cannot send them away. I beg you, you must see that there is nothing we can do. They will go when they will.”

Her eyes were icicles: “I cannot feed them.”

It was a difficult point to disprove, although Laura had practically already done so last night.

Such things were best left unsaid, however, so he reiterated: “They will go when they will.”

If they wanted to stay, Janna would eat what was left of the food and Laura would eat the starving. And if Laura thought that Honingen had outlived its use, it might as well vanish.

Janna's recent more agreeable allures might arguably have gotten in the way of that. Perhaps that was what the countess pinned her hopes on. If so, Furio wished she would rather argue with those Laura had killed in the meantime, or those that Janna killed herself, her most recent and most notable victim being Signor Hatchet.

‘Aye, a woman’s womb can make a man lose his head.’

Furio needed a pipe and bed more than anything. A cup of wine, perhaps, and a bite to eat. He was offered none such, however.

Suddenly, Ardan Jumian’s eyes widened: “Count Arlan’s old steward Turon Taladan is having food carted to us from all over the realm! That should suffice to feed them, surely?”

‘Few things more innocent than a young and valiant knight.’ Furio remembered a common saying.

A common saying among knights, that was, whereas the peasants might say something rather different. The term ‘vicious murderers by profession’ sprung to mind. Horas had abolished knighthood long ago, seeing the custom as dated and borderline barbaric, although the concept of nobility as such had not been touched.

Young Ardan spoke as though he was entirely oblivious to the unsung horrors that hung in the air. If his grandmother passed away and the county fell to him, Furio was rather torn on whether that would be a blessing.

“Hmph!” The old countess made. “He has promised us carts, aye. Have any of them arrived yet? Why, I must be short sighted to overlook the mountains of fodder that are rolling our way!”

Furio cleared his throat: “My lady, whether there will be food makes no difference to us. We must make due, whatever the circumstances. I can relay your message to Laura and Janna for their consideration, but that is all I can do.”

It was meant to get him out of the room and he waited anxiously to see if it had worked.

The countess sighed: “Oh well, you lousy sorcerer. I had not summoned you here for food in the first place. I happen to have a small problem that might be more fit to your skills. There is a ghost in my palace. I need you to get rid of it. Can you do that?”

Furio had to blink a couple of times to ascertain whether she was actually serious. He had heard the ghost story the night before and dismissed it, much as most ghosts anywhere turned out to be the vivid imaginations of fools.

He had learned a bit about ghosts in his studies, of course. They were wandering souls that remained in this sphere instead of entering into either Boron’s Realm or the forever freezing Netherhells. The church of Praios saw these beings as demonic and demanded their banishment wherever they were found. Nevertheless, most ghost stories were nonsense.

He croaked: “A…a ghost, my lady?”

“Don’t look so shocked.” She admonished him. “Aye, a ghost! Pale they say it is, and with long claws and a frightful scowl! Surely, having looked the living dead in the eye, a little ghost does not frighten you? I want it gone. It inconveniences me in so far as it is scaring my guests. I cannot have that, not to mention that I happen to live here!”

There was a spell to banish a ghost, but Furio had long forgotten it. He simply never had to deal with any real one, not that he believed this one was. That it had apparently been spotted was no indication to the contrary. Likely it was some jape the plentiful stableboys of Galahan Palace played, or the pot boys or perhaps some of the younger nobles.

“Aren’t there priests who can assist you in this, my lady?” He asked. “Some say ghosts are lost souls who have not entered into Boron’s Realm on account of matters unsettled in their lives.”

“I have already asked the priests.” She snapped at him. “They insist it must be someone our giant queens ate, so they went to bury all those contents of their bowels.”

Those contents floated, far as Furio recalled, and most of it would be travelling down the Tommel to the open sea, unless beached somewhere or getting caught in the shallows. It didn’t bear thinking about how many souls had been turned to shit in Janna’s and Laura’s bellies.

“I rather believe it came from the Farindel.” He replied after a moment in a bid not to think about gigantic heaps of filth any longer. “From whence the dragons also were seen fleeing, among other things.”

Franka pounded the table: “I do not care where it came from, I want it gone!”

Silence hung in the air and Furio could not take it anymore.

“I will see to it.” He bowed his head and turned. “Now pray, excuse me.”

It was a tad discourteous but he wanted rest. Also, he had decided that he did not like the countess. Outside, he stopped a serving girl to have bread, cheese and wine brought to his room and went to his chambers without any further detours.

‘What a miserable life I have come to lead.’ He reflected sourly when he found his hearth as cold and empty as the room he inhabited.

He was fed up with it all. The window looked inviting to him, but not on account of its seat. Below lay seven-odd paces of free fall and the cold depths of the lake thereunder. He shook his head to get rid of the notion at once.

Letting loose an Ignifaxius spell indoors was frowned upon, and even more so if the spell was cast outside of combat. Nevertheless, Furio used a weak one to ignite the logs and wood shavings once he had finished stacking them, earning him a merrily burning fire but also a room full of ashes and smoke.

‘It was the Mibeltube from yesterday.’ He thought. ‘That’s what made them see ghosts.’

It was all part of yestereve’s giant mishap as things kept going wrong in Honingen. But perhaps the recovery of the holy jar would lift people’s spirits. Doomsayers were only making things worse, particularly if they had a point.

There was a rap on the door and Furio answered as his breakfast was carried in. The girl bringing it was perhaps a tad over nineteen, with a friendly round face and good hips to match. Sometimes Furio envied the less well-learned men of status, free to lust as they pleased.

‘Netherhells.’ He thought. ‘I might envy her as well.’

She seemed scared of him, as many people were scared of wizards. Such was Furio’s lot.

‘Woe is me.’

Soldiers were much more appreciative of a wizard's capabilities, could a well-placed spell not rout an entire army. He had no such advantage with her.

To make matters worse with the girl, when he tried a smile at her, the girl suddenly screamed, dropping all she was carrying. A goblet and pitcher clattered on the floor, and three delicious bread rolls, fried in bacon grease, rolled along chasing each other.

It was the royal crown atop this morning's head. He wanted to shout at her but she had already fled the room, leaving him wondering who would mop the wine up.

That was when a voice behind him whispered something.

He flung himself off his chair and whirled around, his bottom and backside turning numb upon the impact with the floor.

Before him was the ghost. The pale, transparent shape was tall and made even taller by virtue of hovering one-hand-wide off the ground. It looked mostly human, if not for its facial features that appeared molten and solidified again like the wax of a candle. Eyes were sought in vain upon that face too. They were pits, pits of dark and evil shadow, and upon its hands were long claws.

“Rah!” Furio shouted as he flung the Ignifaxius at the demonic creature.

He had been doubtful up until this moment, but what he saw convinced him staunchly that the holy Church of Praios was right in wanting these beings banished. His lance of fire, however, did not manifest. Fright and shock could do that. When the mind was knocked off its balance things could get askew.

He tried again.

It travelled right through the beastly ghost with not so much as a flicker, colliding instead with the wall and setting the very stones on fire for a moment.

“Furio Montane!” The ghost whispered, looking at him with its deep, black pits.

On the floor, Furio cursed. He had a piece of conjurers’ chalk lying on the table and he took it to start drawing the pentagram upon the floor.

‘Was it different from the one for demons?’

He didn’t know. He couldn’t remember. And even if he had, the spell was still lost to him as well.

‘Should I run, then? Perhaps something else.’

He didn’t want to set the room on fire but other than the fire lance, the fire ball and that thirteen-times-damned spell for banishing ghosts he had no ideas. Weirdly, from the corner of his vision, the window seemed to glow to him, like the light at the end of a dark tunnel.

“Furio Montane!” The ghost said again.

It was coming for him now, albeit not very fast, hovering off the ground and giving him ample time to find his feet and put the table between them.

“Go back to the shadows!” Furio screamed, well aware that there must have been a panic in the palace at this time, albeit none of the valiant knights came to his rescue.

The ghost stopped at the edge of the table, eerily motionless. The small fire Furio’s Ignifaxius had caused had guttered out again. He made the decision to flee and judged himself easily able to outrun the ghost even while his current position left him half barred from the door.

When he made a lunge for it, however, the ghost whooshed in his path with all its horror, trapping him firmly in the room and leaving him no retreat. But again, it did not attack him after that, despite its long, horrible claws that looked like overgrown fingernails on bony fingers.

His mind was racing.

“Someone, shout for the priests!”

It was the best thing he could come up with.

“Priests.” The ghost echoed dismissively. “Would you send me to the Netherhells, Furio Montane, your own colleague?”

Furio squinted. Had this ghost been a wizard? Someone he knew, even? The ghost's rags were colourless but might have been robes once. It was also unmistakably of male sex. But who it was...

“Who are...were you?” He demanded.

Its voice did seem oddly familiar, now that he thought of it, even though it was but a whisper and seemed to come from every- and nowhere at once. He thought, and when he realized who this had been his eyes started to burn like fire.

“No.” Furio shook his head. “No, leave me alone!”

The molten face seemed all the more horrid now, knowing why it was so. Janna's stomach had started to digest Ephraim O.  Ilmenview even before it killed him.

“You fool!” Furio cursed as tears ran down into his beard. “You went in there on your own accord! And against my strong advice too! Don't haunt me! I do not deserve this, your death was not a fault of mine!”

Ilmenview's ghost raised its transluscent brows. One had to know what they were to even recognize them.

“Have I blamed you for my death?”

“What do you want, then?!” Furio shouted. “Why must you haunt me in such an hour?!”

“Every hour is such an hour.” The ghost observed. “And I want only what was promised to me.”

Furio had to think for a moment. He had never been more forgetful than now, far as he recalled.

“Your school!” He blurted eventually. “Your bloody mages’ college! Will you go then and leave me alone?”

The molten face twisted into a grotesque display that may or may not have been a smile, but at least the head nodded.

He found no one outside his door when he hastily went to tell the countess how to get rid of the ghost problem in her palace. All the doors were open and things strewn around, abandoned in haste. It was eerie, as though a great pestilence had come and claimed them all.

It lasted only for a moment, however, a moment Furio appreciated immensely in a strange way. He wanted to be alone.

Then there was the pounding of boots on stone and wood and the rattling of arms and armour. The valiant knights had finally found their hearts.

“Sheath your swords, Sirs.” Furio told them when they emerged with shields raised in the hallway. “Steel cannot harm a ghost.”

‘Not even Laura or Janna could hurt it.’

Perhaps being a ghost wasn't so bad after all.

They escorted him out through the yard and over the draw bridge where the entirety of Galahan Palace was waiting for him. They must evacuated when he started screaming.

“Is it gone?” Franka Salva Galahan asked crisply.

“My lady,” He bowed and shook his head. “The ghost is Ephraim O. Ilmenview and he remains in this world because of a promise unfulfilled. Reopen the Honinger mages' school so that his soul may find rest!”

It felt good. There was a rush of positivity going through him. With a flick of the wrist, almost, he had solved the countess' quest, saved a soul and kept a promise made.

But that would have been too easy.

“My lady,” a male voice interjected from the right, “do you think that wise in light of recent events? Speaking for the Holy Church of Praios, our foremost of gods, I must strongly object to this sorcerer's suggestions.”

The speaker was an older Praios priest in robes of white, red and gold, the all-seeing eye on his chest. At a second glance, Furio recognized him as Ronwian of Naris, provost of the temple. The combination of yellow hair and almost colourless eyes made him stand out amongst his acolytes and fellow priests that surrounded him like a flock of sheep their shepherd. Furio knew he was Franka's creature. It was difficult to find anyone of stature in Honingen who wasn't.

“I am inclined to agree with His Reverence.” Franka declared, sounding just so very thoughtful and concerned. “And you assure me that your, mh, exorcism will work?”

An exorcism was the obvious solution. Now Furio remembered the spell as well, which was really more of a ritual such as priests could perform if they were true to their religion. He didn't know if it even worked, but of it did then the bannished soul could never inhabit the realm of Boron.

“Do not doubt the might of our holy Lord Praios, My Lady!” Replied the priest. “This evil spirit will be freezing in the Netherhells before noon!”

“No!”

Furio's voice was an old dog's growl. He had enough, enough of all of it and all of them, even while he could feel the weight of their stares.

Laura and Janna appeared to be still at the river, taking far longer than usual.

He caught himself, realizing that he was doing was ill-conceived and tried to mitigate: “My lady, Ilmenview was a good man and the promise was made to him. We must not do this. He does not deserve it, seeing as he died trying to heal Janna of her illness.”

“This good man stood accused of necromancy!” Ronwian of Naris objected.

Furio intervened before it could go any further: “Aye, and proved himself innocent at trial!”

He would have liked to leave it there, but the cleric wouldn't let him: “The wizards who judge their own are not to be trusted. Naturally they would set themselves free.”

Furious almost choked with anger, given that both trial and investigation had been conducted by the O.D.L. which did not have a reputation for leniency.

‘Or had it been that the order started its observation of Ilmenview after his trial?’

He left that bit unspoken.

“Mh, he was an illusionist, far as I recall.” Countess Franka inclined her head to the provost. “If he was able to conjure up evidence of his innocence one would hardly find that surprising. I have heard all that must be said, wizard, and your objections are well and truly noble but I cannot alow such an evil in my home. Commence with the exorcism, Your Reverence.”

Furio already saw himself helplessly watching the priests enter the palace and do their ugly deed when they set into motion, but he was done being compliant.

“You will not!” He pointed his finger at Ronwian of Naris to make him freeze, which made several of the hundred people in attendance shout out in alarm.

Steel scraped on leather as knights unsheathed their swords and Furio suddenly realized the danger he was in. But he did not care.

“Halt in your step!” He growled at a small, overzealous acolyte who seemed not to have noticed what was going on.

The youth came to an unsteady halt on the wet ground, looking at him as a cloud of mist formed around his mouth. It was getting colder again now, a wet, clingy cold that was hard to protect oneself against.

It was all the more surprising when suddenly little growing vibrations and tremors in the ground heralded Janna’s and Laura’s arrival, scurrying with quick steps while holding onto their own shoulders, stark naked inside those gargantuan blankets of theirs.

“We need a fire, please!” Laura announced. “How far away ‘s breakfast?”

The entirety of Galahan Palace including all the servants and guests and their respective servants and entourage again were congregated at the drawbridge, so there were easily a hundred souls there. And still, Janna and Laura dwarfed them like two grown women dwarfed ants.

Furio made a sigh of relief.

“Urgh, bloody freezing!” Janna made, curling up in her blanket next to Laura.

Both had wet hair and skin.

The presence of so much intimidating female nakedness was clearly making the Nordmarkers in particular uncomfortable, although no one in their right mind could feel at ease with two giant girls over their heads. On this occasion, Laura and Janna sat especially close.

“Janna!” Furio called out. “I require your assistance!”

Had he ever said such a thing before? It tumbled off his tongue easily enough, yet it still felt queer.

“Ooh, I need a fire and a bite to eat first!” Janna laughed lightly.

Food was being prepared and now men shouted for firewood as well, but the scale required did not make things easy.

The countess had her lips pressed together and glared at Furio with a look that told him he had best search for new chambers after all, as well as an army of bodyguards. It occurred to him, though, that with Laura and Janna present she couldn't hurt him lest she wanted to see the ruin of her house and name. That gave him courage.

“Do you remember the wizard, Master Ilmenview?” He shouted in spite of all things.

Janna looked guilty and placed a hand on her tummy: “May the gods... I mean, may Boron rest his soul.”

Furio couldn't be happier: “Aye! Do you recall the promise you made him?”

Her next reaction came unexpected. She tore her mouth open as her eyes widened and her hands sought her face.

“Oh, I'm such a horrible person! I completely forgot!”

“Well, so did I.” Laura added with a chuckle. “There's been happening so many bad things that...you know. Anyway.”

“That little thing can easily be rectified, I believe.” Countess Franka stole the word from Furio. “We shall reopen the college so that his ghost may find rest!”

The old lady was saving her spotted hide, but that didn’t change the fact that he had won in this matter. For now.

-

Travelling by ogress was faster than travelling by horse. As Linbirg experienced it, it was also a deal more daunting. She had become disgustingly familiar with the privy parts of her small ogre army by now, trying to fulfil her duty as Mara had laid it out. She had also become exceedingly familiar with death.

The day before, Marag's Children had annihilated two peasant families of six as well as one of seven, all at Linbirg's orders. The closer they came to Honingen, the more frequently they encountered remote farmsteads outside of defensible villages, and the ogresses had to eat. A stolen herd of sheep, carried in baskets the ogresses weaved from young trees and branches, had helped them before that. The old, grizzled shepherd guarding the herd had been overtaken by Mara and she had drowned him in a ditch. Apparently, she hadn't been hungry at the time.

Another egregious spree of murder they committed had been Firmin ui Lôic. They had found him surprisingly soon after departing Lionstone, after one of his bodyguards had turned up on the road sick and burning with fever. Firmin had been too stingy to pay a room for him and had sent him home to Lionstone instead. He sang like a bird when Mara squeezed him.

That night, the ogresses had quite simply levelled the inn Firmin had taken room in. Linbirg would have liked to ask him why he betrayed her and get to the bottom of it all. But she did not want to get another ogress injured.

The giant beasts stormed the place from two sides, shoving stable and main house till they collapsed. Then they all walked, danced and jumped on the rubble to make sure there were no survivors anywhere underneath.

How many people had died there in total, Linbirg did not know. But there had to have been many. It took a long while to find Firmin’s body.

With his death certain and easily arranged, her position seemed more secure. It gave her a respite that she drew from on the long and hectic march to Honingen. But the closer they got, the more that seemed to fade away as well, giving sway to doubts that plagued her. And she had no one to talk about it. Marag’s Children had killed them all.

‘Or I have killed them all.’

Some of those deaths were likely in error. The trouble was that she didn't know which ones. And now she'd never know. It would all fall into place somehow, she told herself.

Then they saw the city.

It was early in the morning. They had departed their night camp under cover of darkness, as they usually did, right around the time the first peasants lit their hearths. This allowed them to plan their route through the landscape from a lookout, avoiding any place that might raise the hue and cry as well as generally stay hidden as best as possible. There were still occasional encounters, to be sure. Most ogresses were over ten paces tall, moved quickly and Linbirg had three dozen of them at her back. But they could also smell humans quite well and could hunt them down mercilessly, if Linbirg didn't choose to avoid them.

There could hardly be a doubt that someone somewhere had spotted Marag's Children without her knowledge, but at the speed they travelled she was relatively certain that they would arrive at their destination before word of their coming had.

There was a lot of smoke rising from Honingen in the distance. Whether this was normal for such a big settlement, Linbirg could not say. What was definitely not normal were the two gargantuan young women trotting around there as though they owned it all. Their specific size was hard to guess from afar, but it was clear that they dwarfed any of Linbirg’s ogresses completely, which made the latter exceedingly uneasy.

For the first time outside their nightly play, Linbirg heard the ogresses’ voices tremble. They beseeched her, begged her even. But Linbirg made clear that she had to go. There was no alternative. There was no escaping from beings this large anyhow. If the matter of Lionstone came to the new queen’s attention, it would take these long legs a day or so at the most to seek Linbirg’s home, and only the gods knew what then.

Why were there two of them, though? That really compounded Linbirg’s own terror. She had expected one, according to the tell-tale reports they had had. A giantess had stomped into the kingdom from the north and started killing. Then she had made herself queen, simply by virtue of being unstoppable. Some people theorized that she would likely grow bored and move on, just like giants in various stories. But two giants at once? Had she been twice as huge as this and split herself? Or was the other one her sister? Was this other one a queen as well, so that there were two queens? That was absurd, but then again, none of this wasn’t. Maybe the one was a highborn giantess and the other her servant.

Linbirg shook her head in bewilderment.

Her questions would be answered once she got to talk to these beasts, surely. Provided they were able to speak the common tongue. If they spoke ogrish then perhaps Mara could translate. But that was silly, she realized. If they couldn’t speak or communicate then how would they rule the kingdom. It was just that at such size and power even this seemed feasible, even while incomprehensible at the same time.

Linbirg had no rider to herald her arrival. But if she marched across the open field to approach her destination the ogresses would be spotted and might be mistaken for foes. Nevertheless, it was the only chance she saw. She didn’t even have a horse and walking ahead on foot would take half the day on her tiny legs.

She had come to think of herself as small now, being surrounded by Marag’s ogrish Children day and night. Not in the way she felt small next to a big man, or as a child might feel next to an adult. Much smaller than that. Like a little doll. And nevertheless, she commanded.

That thought gave her hope.

“We will walk openly now.” She said aloud. “Let us be seen. Do not kill or harm anyone and do not take anything that isn’t ours. We would not want to be seen as menaces. Leave the talking to me!”

Mara having to translate everything sucked the weight out of the occasion, but at least it seemed the ogresses agreed to the proposal. That ancient deal Linbirg’s forebear the Isenmann had struck seemed to run deep and deeper and extend even to a situation like this, far away from the Bordermark. It was like the ogres had no choice, as though a higher power compelled them. On the other hand were the things that constituted Linbirg's part of the bargain markedly menial and demeaning.

Those were the times when she felt not in control at all. With any ogress but Mara, she couldn’t even communicate in the act. Some preferred it on their backs with Linbirg free to serve them between their legs. Those were the easiest to please. Others sought more dominant positions. The comparison was inaccurate, perhaps, but Linbirg guessed that the same was true for men as well. Perhaps even for women. She wouldn’t know, but in her head she played out conversations with Lionstone’s young serving women about it, as though it wasn’t a big thing.

It really was, though. If the ogress to receive her pleasure so decided to be atop Linbirg there was always the danger and oft a genuine feeling of imminently being crushed to death. There was a lot of passion involved, after all, albeit rather lopsided.

Linbirg wondered what her father would have said had he seen her do the things she did. She hadn't even visited his grave before departing.

-

“Wait, so I digested this man, but his spirit or whatever went on to live as a ghost because we didn't keep our word?” Janna inquired.

Laura couldn't resist: “Yeah, and you probably farted him out too! Pfft!”

She found it funny, but it didn’t really work in the moment.

“Does that happen often,” Janna ignored her, “that the dead become ghosts?”

Furio denied it categorically, stating that ghosts were indeed exceedingly rare.

The trouble was that they couldn’t see it, even after Furio apparently managed to find it again and coaxed it to the window. Exposed to direct sunlight, it simply disappeared. Or else it was all a just a superstition.

“Whatever.” Janna ultimately determined, but Laura wouldn’t give up so easily.

She leaned over the lake surrounding Galahan Palace and held her hand against the wall so as to provide shade. Then, suddenly, they could see it. It was spooky to say the least and irritated Laura's stomach.

“I'm sorry about...digesting you, Master Ephraim.” Janna said when it was her turn to look and her initial shock was overcome. “We will reopen your school, not to worry!”

The ghost did not appear to put great trust in their promises, however, because it simply levitated out of sight, leaving Janna in visible torment.

“Stop beating yourself up over it.” Laura urged her. “With all the shit that's been going on, of course you couldn't remember.”

She actually felt rather like Ephraim's ghost was a bit of a dick for not forgiving Janna. It had been his idea that Janna should swallow him, after all. Then again, he must have gone through bloody agony before his death and probably disliked Janna simply because of what her stomach did to him.

They got the big fire going before breakfast was complete, so they could start drying their clothes as well as their bodies and hair. Bundled up in the blankets it wasn't terribly cold, except on their feet perhaps, but not having towels turned out to be a major annoyance. It had been well past time to wash up, however, despite the cold, and Janna had had a new solution for the problem that did not require soap.

“That thing with the wood ash was brilliant.” Laura said in an attempt to cheer Janna up. “How the heck did you come up with that?”

Janna shrugged but smiled a little: “I've seen the locals do it.”

It was the most counterintuitive thing Laura had ever seen, but apparently wood ash combined with water made a pretty vicious chemical mixture able to wash off fat, oil and similar things most easily, and ash was readily available from all the fires they had built before. Trees for more fires were equally at hand, though the frequent removal of them was starting to show in the immediate vicinity.

For their clothing they had stolen a trick from a couple of washerwomen near the river who were beating the crap out of their laundry with wooden paddles. Laura and Janna only had their hands to work with but between rubbing fabric upon fabric and swooshing it all around in the water, beating the dirt out worked astonishingly well. Their clothing would reek of smoke after drying it so close to the fire, but the air was too cool to do it any other way, plus Laura had already grown quite accustomed to the smell given that she was always inhaling fumes from all the hearths below her.

“So, dry our clothes and then off to the Red-Cursed Farindel, eh?” Laura said cheerfully when they had gotten their new pyre huge and blazing.

Janna grimaced: “I guess. What are we gonna do about it, though?”

Going to the Farindel on this day had been Janna's idea, so Laura didn't appreciate the defeatist attitude.

Neverthelesss, she had to remain positive: “We'll see when we get there. If all else fails, why don't we just flatten it? It's a big area but we have nothing else to do right now. So what if it takes us a week.”

Stomping trees for a week would be miserable work, to be sure, but at least there were a few creatures they could flatten.

Janna didn't reply but stared off into the distance.

After a while she said: “At least my stomach is better. You should eat some of that yoghurt, it worked like magic.”

Laura giggled: “You sound like a TV commercial!”

She was rather glad Janna was cured.

The chief cook of Galahan Palace, a portly, sweating man with a fiery demeanor and a lot of music in his voice, appeared to be in charge of breakfast preparations on this day. Perhaps Laura had killed the guy that had done it before or perhaps he was needed elsewhere. Naturally, the city was becoming ever more ill-equipped to deal with the task, but capacities at the palace were even scarcer by comparison. The conversations they could overhear weren't promising in any case.

“As much cold food as we can get away with.” It was said. “Only fry up a little bacon in big slabs. Porridge, though, the more the better, two small ships full of it! Yes, get the oats from the stables, too!”

The gutted river boats that had served as trenchers before were dragged over by oxen which Laura indicated they would eat as well, raw and living. This spawned the summoning of more living livestock as a way to provide warm food that didn't need to be cooked.

The animals were dirty and didn't appreciate the haste with which they were driven, but at least it was meat.

‘Not as good as people, though.’

Sheep had to be sheered first which took awfully long and led to all sorts of little mishaps and blood.

When Laura thought back on how she had eaten herself silly the night before, her mouth began to water and her tummy started rumbling. She could get real, proper food cooked if she wanted. She would likely even be able to make everyone present drink their own piss. But she couldn't break the laws of physics, nor those of time.

“No raw animals for me.” Janna let it be known when everything was already underway. “I've just gotten better and I'm not risking catching another bug.”

Without her intent, this robbed the cooks and helpers of the respite they thought they had gotten from the livestock idea.

Laura decided to help them out: “I'll eat them. And bring me the horses of the Nordmarkers as well. I'm curious if they taste any different.”

Any opportunity to shit on Duke Hagrobald was a good one.

The duke and his sizeable entourage were looking on with a mix of fascination, hatred and fear. She would have thought for their protest not to take a long time to manifest, but the knights and lords seemed too aware of their physical helplessness before her. Only Hagrobald himself hollered out immediately.

“Cunt!” He screamed. “This is unlawful! An outrage! Utterly outrageous!”

“The duke and his men are protected by guest right, Your Grace!” Turon Taladan reluctantly jumped to his aid. “This extends not only to their persons but also their possessions! I urge you to rethink your decision in this matter lest no Albernian will be safe in Nordmarker lands!”

Janna intervened as well: “You can’t do that, Laura! Those horses don’t belong to you, and we have a truce!”

‘Yeah, and whose damn fault is that?’

Laura sighed instead: “Fine, no Nordmarker horses then. Just hurry up with the damn food.”

The effect of this short and seemingly insignificant intermission was very profound. Laura noticed it after a moment in the way everyone looked at her having changed. She couldn’t have said in how far specifically, but she didn’t like it. There was a touch of pity mixed into their disdain, as though they were looking at a particular wilful – and yet powerful – child.

The day before, she had killed an emperor dragon large enough to challenge a small city. She had gotten the munchies and eaten several hundred people. She didn't feel like she deserved to be belittled. Even the black wizard had treated her with respect.

More than that, though. He had more or less been amicable. Thinking this made her ponder the ogres that were supposed to come and ‘help' her. If there was any reasoning behind that idea, she couldn’t really see it, but it nevertheless spawned the outline of an idea in her head.

Duke Hagrobald calmed down a tad, but not without kicking Laura once more: “It would seem that the giant sister is the more reasonable one, eh?”

“Oh, we’re not sisters, my lord.” Janna smiled at him at once. “Merely friends.”

Laura felt betrayed.

“Oh?” He replied. “Then where is it you come from? Is it from beyond the Brazen Sword, as so many claim? Are there more of your stature? And what is it you intend to do with this kingdom you have conquered and to which you possess no legal claim?”

“I claim it by right of conquest, you little cockroach, and I’ll squish everyone who dares question…”

“Laura!” Janna cut her off. “Be nice! Our apologies, my lord, she hasn’t slept well. We come from a place far, far away and beyond any of your imagination. And there are only the two of us. As to what my friend wants to do with this kingdom, I dare say she doesn’t quite understand that herself.”

It was utterly disgusting and couldn’t be left unaddressed: “Fuck you! I’m trying to carve out a place for us to stay where we have food and are reasonably safe from any shenanigans and all you do is bitch and complain and fucking backstab me!”

Janna withstood her gaze in complete defiance: “Then play by the fucking rules.”

There was a silence. The sudden shift in tone and language had made everyone quite insecure. It was broken suddenly with the arrival of a nondescript working man who came running up to Furio and handed him two scrolls of dirty parchment.

Upon unrolling and briefly inspecting these, the little wizard cleared his throat: “It would seem there is a claim!”

There were two, actually. One for Laura to rule Albernia and one for Emperor Horasio the Third to supremely rule over whoever ruled Albernia. It became clear very quickly that Laura’s at least was entirely made up, and upon request Furio admitted that it had been the late Signor Hatchet who had formulated the texts from which this new information emerged. A long, long time ago, during the age of dragons, there had been giants walking around as well, and one had ruled over Albernia. Laura was named as a direct descendant of that giant whereby she possessed a claim.

It was a load of horseshit as Duke Hagrobald pointed out immediately, but Countess Franka, Turon Taladan and several other nobles rebuked him quite harshly for it. It was only window dressing, obviously, but very important to them.

Any ruler needed a claim by law. The trouble was that Laura didn't really have one but she was bigger and most of all heavier than the law, and impossible to remove. It was all on a razor’s edge, as ever.

The claim for the Horasian Emperor was more straight forward, albeit completely and utterly tedious to listen to. Laura and Janna started drying their clothes as they tried to follow the long list of names, holding the garments as close to the flames as they dared and watching them steam as the water evaporated. Boiled down, figuratively, there were lots and lots of family ties between big noble houses, and the biggest ones most of all. People in general, and nobles in particular, didn't like marrying down on the social ladder. The Empress of Gareth, currently just some obscure little girl by the name of Xaviera, was distantly related to the Emperor of Horas. Incidentally, it so happened that the same was true for King Finnian ui Bennain, former sovereign of Albernia – as well as vice versa which was how the claim came to be.

Nobody dared to question this one, for it was objectively better. The issue was that the whole alliance thing with Horas had become completely dubious. Perhaps it had been a mistake not to stick to it.

“Aye, I'll remedy that when I have your feeble emperor grovelling at my feet!” Duke Hagrobald boasted loudly, referring to Albernia belonging to Horas. “See if I don’t, eh, men?!”

Only then they cheered and only half–heartedly so. They weren't as bold as their liege but they feared him, too.

Laura couldn't say she particularly cared about the Horasians, mistake or not, but she also regarded the obnoxious Duke as her enemy, which inclined her more positively towards his enemies.

“Maybe we should go south and help out the Horasians after all.” She pondered in English. “It might be warmer there.”

“Is it warmer than here, down south in the Horasian Empire?” Janna asked Furio in the local tongue.

The wizard was already eating and made a distinctly profane appearance at it, with hot beer and bacon grease making his beard glisten and steam in the cold air.

He swallowed forcefully: “Er, that is so! Not warm as in Al'Anfa it would be, or the Desert of Khôm by daylight. But warmer than here, most likely.”

“And what made you change your opinion, if you don't mind me asking?” Janna went back to English in turn.

Laura had to grimace: “Well, all we do is still going from place to place and fucking it up, royally. I wanted it to be different in Albernia but right now Honingen can't even really support us any longer. And think about it, it is warmer, there's food, probably, and we can end that civil war over there. Just imagine all the senseless killing we could prevent.”

“By crushing Hagrobald's army.” Janna finished. “I see we're at the conjecture stage of the cycle again. Let's make some big, big plans only to fuck it all up later.”

She was being sarcastic about it, but the point was well taken. They had been here before, several times. The problem was that they lived and moved fast while the world around them moved exceedingly slowly sometimes. Or so it felt.

“So, you're saying we should play a hand rather than folding early?”

Janna laughed: “Stop trying to sound smarter than you are! And no. What we actually should do is lay low and not touch anything until help arrives. Knowing that neither of us is capable of doing that, I for one think we should use our power to do good. But it seems we're not really good at that either.”

“True.” Laura retorted. “You can ask Signor Hatchet about that. Oh, wait!”

“At least I'm not as bad as you are.” Janna sneered. “I bet you right now that you can't even go one day without killing somebody.”

Laura was conflicted. A bet sounded like a fun idea but she didn't want to limit herself so severely. Betting with Franka had been fun even though she hadn't yet inquired about the outcome. Somehow she sensed that she didn’t want to know.

“And why should I?” She therefore said. “It's not like anybody can stop me anyway. Hey, if we took the Duke hostage and threatened to squash him I bet we could get all the food we need and stop his army from going to Horas all at the same time.”

Janna shook her head: “You're so unbelievably stupid. Didn't you hear what they said? If you want to be queen you need to obey their laws and customs, the most fundamental ones at least. Besides, they would probably kill Franka's daughter.”

“Granddaughter.” Laura corrected, a feeble rebuttal that made Janna roll her eyes.

Still, she pondered all the things she would be free to do without Janna. But she couldn’t hurt her and leaving her was out of the question as well.

“We have to stay here for some time anyway.” She listlessly said as her eyes drifted off into the distance, seeking solace there.

But that was not what she found. Instead, her blood turned to freezing ice and if she hadn't made water before she might have pissed herself.

Janna's tone was still aggravated for she hadn’t seen: “Yeah, because of the...what?”

Then she seemed to spot them too. Laura and Janna had been informed of what was coming and still allowed themselves to be caught with their pants down,  not to mention stark naked, cold and hungry. Their only excuse was that they had not been told to expect so many.

A small ogre army was coming at them, too many to count quickly and marching at a pace that seemed to suggest they meant business.

Laura felt uncomfortably reminded of when she had suddenly been confronted by the emperor dragon the day before. Was this worse? It was hard to tell. They had some experience with ogres at least, but not so many at that, and not under such unfavourable circumstances.

“Put your shoes on,” Janna pronounced forcibly calmly while her massive chest was heaving up and down. “Stay back and let me do the crushing but if they start to overwhelm me you gotta intervene. It doesn’t look like they got weapons.”

The last bit of that was hard to tell from a distance, but the first part was a sound tactical decision, even if it would be uncomfortable. Laura’s chucks were drenched after having been washed and scrubbed in the river and the fire had only just started to do its work. Most crucially, they were made of cloth and not high enough to prevent the barbie-sized attackers from getting at her legs. Janna’s boots on the other hand were high, made of leather and even reasonably dry. They had only required some wiping down as well as scraping the mud and who knew what else off the bottom.

“Make sure they can’t hold on to you.” Laura advised. “Move fast and never stay still.”

There were many ogres. More than ten, at least. Likely, more than twenty. Perhaps more than thirty even. They moved quickly as well, coming straight for them over the fields with their low walls of stacked stone, moss and brushwork and in between the little islands of trees that served to break the wind and provide firewood.

Laura and Janna rose and forgot all the tiny goings-on beneath them. Janna pulled on her boots and they both hugged their blankets around themselves before setting in motion to meet their foes.

The creatures were wild-looking with brownish hair and a patchwork collection of pelts and hides for clothing which was nevertheless scant upon their athletic, barbie-doll-sized bodies. They all were female, though, the bigger and more decisive kind of their species.

It had not been freezing and the ground was still soaked up with water from the melting snow, turning the furious run Janna had embarked on initially more into a careful jog while Laura kept to her left shoulder. Running in drenched, dastardly cold Chuck’s without socks on was just awful. Without a bra, Janna seemed more impeded by her bosom than her footwear. None of it was optimal.

The cold wind on wet hair was worst, however. Being clean felt good and fresh and all but Laura had never missed the amenities of modern civilization more than now as her head started throbbing with the sudden drop in temperature.

When the ogresses saw what was coming for them, they slowed down. Then they seemed to panic. There was some screaming amongst them which gave Laura hope that her and Janna’s plan might work out fine. They were just Barbies, after all. What could be so hard about stepping on a bunch of Barbies?

She wondered how in the world that weird evil wizard had believed these creatures might help her rule her kingdom. It seemed absurd, especially given the scraps of words Laura could pick up from their frightened shouting which was definitely not the common tongue. No, what these might be good for, if anything, was having a little fun.

She pulled Janna by the shoulder: “Leave a few alive!”

To her surprise, this made Janna stop entirely.

“To play with.” Laura explained quickly and smiled. “You’re not gonna get all ethical about them too, are you?”

Janna shook her head: “Good idea.”

The closer they came, the more the knot in Laura’s belly untightened, likely because she was able to look over her little enemies more from above while they huddled together as though they meant to make Janna’s job of crushing them even easier. But when they were a mere three or four steps away, there was something else. A tiny person, not an ogress, darted forth, waving its little arms furiously to catch Janna’s and Laura’s attention.

“Halt, stop!” It squeaked, revealing itself as a little girl. “These ogresses are mine and we are not your foes! I beg you, do not destroy us!”

It was rather odd.

-

Linbirg’s heart was goung faster and more violently than she ever remembered it doing during her lifetime. The giantesses were huge, tall as the sky, and Marag’s Children trembled before them. Ogres were huge in their own right, but to this they did not compare. It was all she could do to keep them from running away, reminding them of their oath and all that, as well as telling them that all would be well.

She herself wasn’t really sure of that, though. She couldn’t be. The giant young women were naked underneath grey cloaks of equally absurd proportions, except for footwear. And they came to do harm, visible plain as day upon their gargantuan faces.

Upon Linbirg’s words, however, they stopped their strides. This gave her hope.

“Please!” She shouted again. “If you’ll hear me, I can explain!”

“Are you a servant of the dark wizard?” The bigger one asked. “Why has he sent you here?”

The smaller giantess, the one with strange, red shoes, stepped out from the back of the other and started to shift sideways, perhaps to get a better view or perhaps to attack from the flank. It didn’t make much of a difference.

“I know nought of any wizards!” Linbirg shouted truthfully. “I merely came to claim my father’s lands and titles which are mine by rights and were almost stolen from me by my own steward whom I had to kill!”

She recalled the priest at Lionstone as the words left her mouth, the lad with the hourglass and the grey hair. Had he been a wizard? He had said he wasn’t a priest, after all. Then again, though, it was common knowledge that dark wizards were all stark raving mad, as well as unequivocally evil. He hadn’t struck her as such, precisely.

“What?” The bigger monster shook her head in bewilderment.

‘I am talking to them!’ Linbirg realised.

It felt impossible but it was true.

The words spilled out of her mouth: “My steward, Firmin ui Lôic, he betrayed me, he made me go speak to the ogres when they came to my father's barony hoping they'd kill me which they didn’t because there's an ancient pact that my forebear the Ironman made and it meant that they had to follow me so long as I upheld my end of the bargain! And...and follow me they did so I took them to Lionstone where I discovered that Firmin was going here to tell you I had died and to make you give him my father's lands and titles since I haven't officially inherited by decree of the king, the former king, I mean, he never declared me a woman grown so I didn't inherit and I...I... Firmin, he wanted to steal...”

There wasn't enough air in her lungs to tell it all, unfortunately, and ere she knew, a strange darkness engulfed her. She looked up to see where it was coming from but all she could see was black.

When the light returned, she could see Mara's face, close and from below. Linbirg was lying in the ogress' palms. She felt weak and her head was pounding but she wanted to get up right away. When Mara noticed, the ogress put her giant thumb over Linbirg’s chest, pushing her down, indicating that she wanted to take care of this.

“Is she dead?” The voice of the slightly smaller giantess inquired.

“I think she forgot to breathe.” Replied the other.

“Hm.”

Linbirg craned her neck to see but the world was upside down, only adding to the sheer absurdity of it all.

“Did you catch any of what she was screeching there?” Asked the big one.

Mara's face hardened: “My purpose is not to understand but to do. I do as the Ironman says. Always.”

“You're well-spoken for an ogress” The smaller giantess with the darker hair said. “But you do understand that your Ironman is but a little girl, right?”

Their speech had a strange, foreign flavour to it, Linbirg found, though she could not have told whence it came.

“That matters not.” Mara replied. “She wears the iron in her blood and we are bound to her. In life and in death.”

The big giantess cocked her head and her cloak slipped a little, revealing the womanly features previously concealed. It made Linbirg wonder what they were dealing with. Ogresses were female, though lean and hard by way of their living. And old tales of giants were known as well. They served few other purposes than to entertain and scare children or convey some moral lesson, but they had to have come from somewhere.

‘What if they are gods, though?’

As if even gods were this big.

The larger giantess replied: “Death you can have, but first you tell us why. Why do you follow this little pipsqueak? Has she bewitched you, perhaps?”

Mara's mouth twisted into an asinine smile: “You can call it that if you want.”

The ogress looked to the others, presumably to gage how well they might fare in a fight. Linbirg could tell that she didn't fancy the odds, though.

Likewise, the two enormous females exchanged a look.

“So, it's true.” The smaller one said. “She does serve that evil wizard.”

Mara growled in response: “Are you deaf?! The Ironman knows not of what you speak. And neither do I. The Ironman serves no one but the king of humans. This I know.”

“Well,” the big one took a step forward, “I think I've heard enough. Can the others speak as well, or only you?”

Mara rose with Linbirg in her hand, holding her by the waist and leaving the little girl dangling.

Her voice was sheer, venal hatred: “Only I can speak the Isenmann's tongue, giant. The rest of us speak only that of the hills.”

Linbirg understood that the ogres must have tales of giants, too. There was no time to ponder any such things, however, because the situation had become untenable. Mara was trying to protect her most nobly, but she was failing at it.

“We will leave you alive then.” The smaller giantess said more to the other than to Mara. “I want to hear you beg.”

This was very horrible, indeed. Something had to happen.

Without any regard for the drop, Linbirg twisted in Mara’s grasp and kicked herself free. She couldn’t see the ground coming up to hit her, but she felt it and an audible ‘oof’ came from her lungs. She didn’t let that stop her, however.

Before Mara could catch her again she climbed to her feet and ran right at the bigger giantess who had already made her first step forward, intent on killing the ogres.

“No!” Linbirg screamed from the top of her lungs. “I serve you! I serve the Queen! Please!”

Were they both queens or just the bigger one? It didn’t matter.

Mara grunted behind her and took a step forward as well.

Confusion was plastered on the bigger giantess’ face at first. She wasn’t uncomely but more womanly than the other who had more feline, girlish features and somewhat darker skin. Then something different entered into the face of the larger giantess, a pursing of the lips and slight furrow of the brows, indicating that something was about to happen.

That something, as Linbirg discovered to her absolutely horror, was an attack. The left foot, as large as a house, took another step ahead with a swiftness that moved the grass on the ground from all the wind. Then, before there was time to do anything other than scream, her right foot came to crush Linbirg out of existence.

‘Everything I did was wrong.’ Linbirg thought. ‘It was wrong to come here. It was wrong to kill all those people. All those poor innocent people.’

They might meet her again in the Netherhells, she thought, as the gargantuan boot shot forward only to become invisible and be replaced by the sole. It made an awfully frightening ‘woo’ sound as it passed over her, engulfing her in shadow.

But it didn’t stop there.

Remarkably, the giant foot passed right above her, three paces perhaps, over her head. Then it settled with a massive crash behind her, crushing the mud and grass and rocks and roots and anything unfortunate enough to inhibit its settling.

‘Mara.’ Linbirg thought. ‘She has killed Mara.’

But that wasn’t true either.

When she moved from outside the shadow of the massive leg now towering above her, Linbirg could see Mara’s legs sticking out from under the sole, still frantically kicking and struggling. The other ogres had moved away in fear, cowering on the ground now. They did not stand a chance against a monster like this.

‘They are just as helpless as I am to them.’ Linbirg realized.

Somehow she found that just, even a little good, maybe. Now they would learn how awful it felt to be a toy in an other’s hands who could do whatever they wanted and with no recourse whatsoever.

That slight hint of joy lasted only for a moment, however, because before she knew what was happening, she felt herself pinched between two enormous, strange, leathery pillows and catapulted fast and high into the air. It took her a moment, but she realized that the large giantess, instead of crushing her underfoot, had taken her captive between an enormous thumb and index finger.

‘Does she mean to show how she undoes me?’ She wondered.

The digits flexed and moved ever so slightly, and each time Linbirg thought her time had come. It was the point of torture.

“I have your little Ironworm!” The giantess spat hatefully. “Do what I say, or I’ll squish her like a bug!”

The digits pressed together in an instant making Linbirg scream while her ribs underwent a test of how far they could bend without breaking. It was clear that the giantess could very easily lend truth to her threat should she so choose. Linbirg’s body would hardly even offer resistance.

“Isenmann!” The ogresses cried out.

They had been doing so the entire time, Linbirg just noticed now.

She looked down, seeing that they were in the headless process of attacking the giantess, thereby throwing their own and Linbirg’s lives away. Mara was still pinned to the ground under the giant boot and would die first.

“Do what she says!” Linbirg screamed against the pressure on her lungs. “Please!”

She couldn’t see if it had worked because she was so suddenly and violently yanked around that her hair flew and her head spun. The stopping motion, again, came so abruptly and totally that she could have sworn her insides would burst and fly out of her belly. It made her tummy lurch.

The giantess’ face filled her vision now, looking down on her with curiosity and malice: “Clever girl. Tell them to lie on the ground. Now.”

This was an evil giantess, Linbirg thought, and it was terrible to be at her mercy.

“They cannot understand you!” She cried, struggling against the pressure on her body that was threatening to squish her like a tadpole.

Down below, Mara's voice grunted some command in the old, brutal tongue and the ogresses left off.

Again, sudden movement and sudden halt. Linbirg forgot where she was for a moment and everything sounded queer.

The giantess commanded: “On the ground, now!”

And Mara conveyed it.

Linbirg realized that she was hanging upside down and all the blood had rushed into her head. She felt hot and sick at the same time and her mouth tasted like vomit.

Below, the ogresses obeyed without any hesitation and the big giantess called upon the other in yet a different tongue.

Linbirg was lifted up again, albeit mercifully slowly this time.

“In life and in death, right?” The sadistic giantess smiled.

Linbirg was helpless. She could only watch and scream as the gargantuan monster raised her boot off Mara and placed its heel upon the head of another, testing the truth of those words she had echoed.

And it was so.

The trapped ogress cried, whimpered and wreathed, but never dodged. Linbirg tried to recall her name. She felt like she owed her that, but all she drew from the quiver of her mind was: ‘I'm sorry.’

‘I'm sorry.’

A horrible gnashing sound accompanied the giant foot doing its purpose. The other ogresses started crying as they saw their sister killed. And the giant, evil monster grunted with approval.

-

Laura bit her lip watching Janna do her thing. It was like she had never turned good and obnoxious. Whatever pounds too many she might have had before, illness and hardship had gnawed off of her. Her breasts were still huge and her hips and buttocks round and firm and wonderful. She looked like a goddess, naked under her blanket, her nipples perking upright in the cold. And she was so wonderfully merciless.

Janna enjoyed it too, Laura could tell, the wicked, unadulterated power. Laura hoped that it would fix her, change her back to her former self when they had wiped practically an entire culture off the map in Thorwal. Oh, the thousands they had devoured, crushed and fucked to death.

It wouldn’t last, though, probably. They were dealing with the enemy here, with monsters and dark magic. But there were many more to go. The one Janna had just crushed under her heel left thirty-five feral barbies. Laura had counted briefly. And with the genius move of keeping that strange little girl hostage, they seemingly could do with them as they pleased.

“I want crush one too!” She announced and came forward, looking over the tightly packed selection from which to choose.

Janna laughed: “Help yourself. Didn’t think it was gonna be this easy.”

“Weird, though, isn’t it,” Laura remarked and leaned over to see the tiny Ironman from up close, “why are they so willing to die for her?”

The girl was dissolving in tears while simultaneously trying to fight against Janna’s fingers. Perhaps she was being squeezed a little too hard, for the face beneath the fine golden curls of the girl’s hair was fiery red now, bordering on purple. She had strange spots, marks on her face as well, maybe pockmarks or just another manifestation of being deathly scared.

“Try not to suffocate her.” Laura advised. “If she dies, the ogres might try something.”

Janna transferred the girl to her palm where she curled up in a ball of pity.

Janna didn’t seem to care, though: “Try anything funny and I squish you.”

She had stepped off the dead ogress’ head and shoulders, leaving a sight that churned even Laura’s stomach a little. The level of detail she could see from on high was a lot better than it should have been. She had always enjoyed very good eyesight, but growing to ninety meters left her seeing much more than if she had been standing at her normal size atop a ninety meter platform.

With squished tiny humans, however, there usually wasn’t this much to see because they ended up turned into some red, pink slime with a few broken bones sticking out or so, or as a flat imprint of their former selves with a puddle of guts beside them.

Ogres were a different matter. Janna’s foot had compressed the barbie-sized body before sinking through, leaving a half-moon-shaped tear roughly around the collarbone, but the skin had ripped further below and been dragged along violently. Where the head had been was a mess of blood-drenched hair, liquid brains and skull fragments, complete with a piece of jaw that still had most of its remarkably white teeth.

Laura soon had second thoughts about crushing an ogress although the display of ease and power with which Janna had done it still turned her loins to water. It just didn't feel right with her shoes so painfully uncomfortable.

She decided to test the so far impeccable obedience instead by slipping her right foot out of its shoe and placing it over one ogress that laid on her back. She put her toes right were the little, frightened face was and steadied herself on Janna's shoulder.

“Lick.” She commanded then, challenging the tiny beast to demean itself.

The one who could speak the common tongue had very fuzzy brown hair that was ever so slightly wavy but also stiff, making it look like a mane. She translated the command, although that seemed to take a bit of an explanation. Strangely, some words in this guttural alien language sounded markedly similar to ones of the English language, just as was the case with the common tongue and for which Laura thus far lacked any feasible hypothesis to explain it.

Nevertheless, as soon as the translator had spoken did the ogress beneath Laura’s foot obey. It was reluctant and accompanied by crying but Laura could see and feel that her victim was licking her bare sole despite the dirt and grime from her wet sneaker. And when Laura moved her foot, the tiny tongue went between her toes as well.

“It tickles!” She giggled. “So, looks like we can do whatever we want with them. Why don’t we keep them for a while? They are no threat so long as we have their little Ironshrimpy. And once we’ve played them all dead in a few days we can smush her as well. I think I’ll have one eat me out after breakfast, how about you?”

She wanted to see Janna do that more than anything, place her beautiful pussy on a tiny victim’s face and crush its helpless body under her ass when she was done. And they had so many to play with, although it would probably be best to get some intimate shaving first, just for it to be perfect.

But before Janna could answer, the tiny Ironman started to speak as if she had known that she was being talked about.

“Please stop hurting us, My Queen!” She begged, sniffing. “I only…I only came to pledge allegiance to you and swear my fealty! Pl – Ah!”

Without any warning, Janna took the girl by one tiny, filigree leg and lifted her, raised her over her mouth and licked her lips: “One more word out of your tiny cunt mouth and I fucking eat you.”

Laura shivered where she stood, and not from cold.

The ogresses below all started wailing at once and the one who could speak said: “You leave her be! Give the Ironman back and we will forget what you did to us!”

Janna lowered the girl again and looked down with a sense of disappointment: “It’s a shame, I know. I get the idea, Laura, but I think something fishy is going on. I don’t want to play into the hands of that evil wizard. We should just kill them now and be on the safe side.”

Laura sighed, her stomach moving in multiple awkward directions at once. She knew Janna was probably right, but she didn’t want to part with her toys so early.

“That’s weird anyhow.” She reasoned. “Think about it, he said they could help me rule. How did he picture that happening, exactly? Only one of them can even speak. I mean, they would rock as an army or something like that but…but it isn’t like I could put them in as local lords when nobody can understand what they’re saying.”

“Maybe as a…goon squad,” Janna shrugged and shook her head, “so they can go crush rebellions and you don’t have to go yourself?”

“Maybe.” Laura replied. “But that’s way too wishy-washy. I already established he’s fallible, maybe he was simply wrong on this. Maybe it’s just some random chaotic-evil-type deal, like a…dog chasing a car. He would have no idea what to do with it if he caught one.”

Doubts had started to sprout in her about the wizard actually being as reprehensible as they assumed. Janna had a bad dream that scared her, but every time Laura had spoken with the man, he had been charming, forthcoming, intriguing…even nice. That was more than could be said about most other people, who were either unreasonable zealots, scaredy-cats or lickspittles.

She couldn’t say that, though, so instead she said: “There doesn’t have to be a massive magical conspiracy. I mean, just look at them!”

They looked almost profoundly profane, the opposite of magical, despite their size. There was nothing mystic about them whatsoever, except perhaps for the shrubbery that had accumulated in their hair and what passed for their clothing, but it was obvious that this might just as well have come from moving through dense woods for a period of time.

“We could have Furio look them over.” Janna started to give in. “But…”

She sighed.

“Oh yes!” Laura exclaimed with the realization. “Furio can see magic! If he says they’re clean, they’re clean! Oh, thank you!”

She took her foot off the still licking ogress and gave Janna a hug and a peck on the cheek. She had to do something to start rekindling their fire.

“Well then.” Janna tapped her foot at the ogresses. “Get up and start to move.”

They drove them before themselves like a flock of geese, making them jog while stepping dangerously close behind them and occasionally kicking stragglers to the ground and laughing about it. It was wicked fun.

Back at Galahan Palace, the assembled people greeted them with open mouths as thirty-five giant ogresses trampled into view with their heads low and tears in their eyes. Laura and Janna forced them to kneel in submission before the people.

There were many questions, undoubtedly, but it seemed as though the assembled nobility had lost their speech.

Laura grasped the opportunity to explain: “We've caught some ogres. Don't be afraid, they're very tame while we hold the Ironman hostage. Furio, we need you to tell us whether there is anything magic about them.”

Turon Taladan in turn found his tongue and rose into a pretentious speech: “Twelve cheers to our gracious Queen Laura and her dear friend for having saved us from this scourge before they could do any damage!”

It opened the gates to an obnoxious flood of sycophantic fawning that Laura nevertheless enjoyed.

“Yesterday, a dragon. Today, this!” Cheered old Franka Galahan. “Her Grace excels herself, truly. Although, what are ogres doing in my lands, without my knowledge? They must have come from far away! And why did they come from the south when we know the ogre queen sits in Andergast?”

It was theorized immediately and loudly that they had probably tried to go Andergast and join the large ogre horde while others held that it must be a raid or an ill-timed diversionary attack originally coming from the north.

More theories sprouted up like mushrooms accordingly, some more far-fetched than others. Much as it seemed a fruitless exercise did Laura have to concede that it was an interesting question.

“You, where do you come from?” She asked the one ogress they had who was capable of speaking the common tongue.

The reply was brisk, hateful and all but useless: “From the hills, the lands of the Ironman.”

It displeased Laura, but the nobility was astonished.

“She speaks!” Multiple throats cried out and immediately began to shout suggestions on what to ask next.

Laura went along with it for the moment.

“What is your name?”

“Mara.”

“What are you?”

“Marag’s Children.”

“Have you word of the ogre queen?”

“I don’t know what that is. We serve the Ironman.”

“What food do you eat?”

“Man flesh.”

That put a sudden end to the suggestions and gave birth to angry whisperings.

“Err, who is that Ironman we hear so much of, suddenly?” Franka Salva Galahan inquired. “At first I thought my old ears were failing. A man, made of iron, is he?”

Janna produced the little girl for everyone to look at but made sure Mara and her ilk had no chance of recapturing her.

“It's not a man but a snivelling little girl,” Janna said, “and she's made of flesh and blood, not iron. Although she does appear to have chainmail on.”

Franka nodded her head once and went right on: “Then what would make these beasts do her bidding?”

“Witchcraft.” Suggested several tongues at once, some whispering, others yelling the word like a curse. “Blood magics!”

“Witchcraft begets witchcraft like a horse begets a foal!” Screamed Duke Hagrobald who until now had been astonishingly silent. “See what it brings you, Albernians, to let dark works and fairy worship fester in your lands!”

The Nordmarkers had a reputation for being a little pious and obnoxious about it. Regrettably, the Albernians didn't seem to have a rebuke.

Furio spoke next, however, proving the duke's high and mighty horse lame in clinically oblivious fashion: “There is nothing. I cannot find a speck of anything arcane about these creatures, or the little girl. What do you mean to do with them?”

Laura's eyes met Janna's while below shouts of “kill them!” were ringing out.

Janna turned to Furio again: “Is there anything you could have missed? I mean, are there things...magical things you can't detect?”

Laura wanted to protest but had to bite her tongue.

“Few things are certain in the world of the arcane.” Furio admitted ponderously. “But I should think it unlikely.”

Laura took a breather and gleamed at Janna. The evil wizard had been right, these ogresses would help her, just not in the way he envisioned. Janna still looked sceptical with her lips pressed together, brooding over the kneeling barbies at her feet.

Laura decided to change the subject by clearing her throat: “Eh-hem, when is this food going to be ready, exactly? I'm starving!”

She had binged on people last evening, but evidently her body was already done with them. Weed stimulated the digestion and Mibeltube seemed to be similar in this respect as well. This meant that smoking it was a rather taxing affair on the supporting infrastructure, the tiny people who had to provide the food, in a situation in which Laura and Janna already lived off the land like a massive, hungry army.

“Part of it is already cold, your grace.” Countess Franka provided. “We are woefully ill-equipped here to provide such masses as you require, and I must stress that we are running out of stocks! I wonder, could you be persuaded, perhaps, to rid us of this ogre scourge by eating them?”

Laura looked at the ogresses. Eating one would be a bloody, chewy and no doubt gutsy affair that she wanted no part of.

She shook her head: “They will die…in time. But not right away. We intend to keep them a little bit.”

This was an attempt to settle the matter with Janna as well. Laura bent down to toss a couple more trees into the massive fire, from the pile they had gathered. She wanted to squash an ogress under her feet, but her shoes needed to be dry. Janna said nothing but knelt to grab her half-filled river boat with one hand to tip the loveless mixture of porridge, bacon, sausages, bread and probably a fair amount of sawdust sweepings into her mouth.

“Shall I have to feed them as well?!” Franka asked, incredulous. “Does Her Grace not realize how thinly stretched we are? It is too little butter spread over too much bread, only the words too much now fill me with sorrow!”

Laura grew annoyed: “I brought you a bunch of money, haven't I?! What happened to my boats, by the way, the ones that were full of gold and silver.”

The dead dragon was still where she had left it. It was too big for the tiny people to move, but the ravens seemed to like it and were at its lifeless carcass like flies.

Turon Taladan cleared his throat and stepped forward: “Forgive the procacity, Your Grace, but we have brought your wealth inside for fear of thieves. You saw not fit to exact us with any instructions as to its use, so we assumed it was your wish to keep it.”

Laura had had plans with the money, but they seemed not to be so important anymore.

“Then use it to buy food. Besides, I thought you were carting up supplies from the west, isn't that so?”

The tall old steward nodded fiercely: “Aye, Your Grace, alas none has arrived with us thus far. I have instructed several riders to investigate the matter but I haven’t had word from them either. It is possible that the carters have no knowledge of the open road. The Red Curse is making Winhall dubious, as well as the river. And they may not know yet that Abilacht is back into the fold and no longer controlled by vicious rebels.”

“Your Grace,” Franka added gravely, “listen to your councillors, we have no trade! All the gold in the world might not help us, seeing as we can't eat it! We are cut off from our own kingdom!”

Within the sea of highly concerned faces, one man looked incredibly pleased: Duke Hagrobald Guntwin of the Big River. All this talk must have been music to his ears, although Laura didn't know whether that would still be the case if he knew that she had raided one of his towns and pushed the castle of one of his vassals clean off a cliff. She knew she had to shut up about it for now so as not to make Janna mad again. But it would be nice to see his face if and when he found out.

Nevertheless, this might be the answer.

“We can trade with Nordmarken!” She exclaimed. “They have loads of food and we are not at war any longer! Isn't that right, Duke Hagrobald?”

He puffed his chest before laughing: “And why, by Praios, should I do that?! On the contrary. I think we have rather been rushing things! The ink on our truce is not even dried yet and here we are negotiating trade! Nay! I am rather thinking about an embargo! My loyal chancellor, what say you in this matter?”

There was no reply until one of his handsome knights told him: “Your chancellor isn't here, Sire. If you recall, you have entrusted him with ruling your lands while you are campaigning.”

Yes, Hagrobald wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed, and he was also a prick.

“Then make due!” He shooed at the man with his hands. “Send a rider at once and give him our swiftest horses! Let it be known, no trade with Albernia until I change my mind, ha, ha!”

The cocksure way in which he did it made Laura angry, on top of the fact that the gold she had stolen was apparently useless.

She gritted her teeth: “I am your liege now, don't forget! Aren't you obligated to help me in this matter?”

“With regards to my new countship, aye.” He grinned up at her. “I will happily send you anything you require from there...within reason. You do not possess Nordmarken, however, and Praios help me you never will!”

The notion was enormously intriguing. Nordmarken was rich, orderly, virtually untouched by trouble. But Janna wouldn't allow it, so Laura would have to act in secret, do what she did in Gratenstone a couple of times more. That was sweet as well. Any excuse to squish people was welcome, but first she would play with some ogresses. Life was good after all, she decided stubbornly, despite everything.

“Enough of this!” She determined.

The ogres were still kneeling, their eyes fixed on Janna who was regarding the tiny Ironman in her hand.

“Is she okay?” Laura asked, fearing that the tiny thing might have cried herself to death.

Janna pressed her lips together before she looked up: “Physically, yeah. But I feel bad for her.”

Of course, while Janna had believed the girl a pawn of their weird evil adversary, any mistreatment had been justified. Since Furio hadn't found any magic, however, this was no longer the case.

Laura had to play this delicately: “Maybe we should, like, put her with Franka. She would still be our hostage but you don’t have to hold her the entire time. If you put her in your pocket you will just end up squashing her. We can let her off the hook when we're done with her ogres.”

If possible, Laura would still squish the girl, just for the sake of it. But Janna didn’t need to know that.

“Sounds fair.” Janna said to Laura's great relief.

“Shall we toss her in an oubliette?” Franka asked when Laura told her the plan.

By now, the old countess was sitting on a cushioned chair under a blanket and warmed her booted feet by a fire her servants had built for her. This made her look even older than usual, and more ineffectual than she was. There were also quite a lot of fires around now, the huge one Laura and Janna used for their clothing, the countess’ fire and a dozen or so cookfires with pots and kettles steaming in the cold. There was a lot of smoke and mist in the air as a result.

“No!” Janna shouted out at the countess’ suggestion.

In stark contrast to Franka's place by her fire, an oubliette was little more than a hole with an iron grate on top where prisoners were sometimes put to facilitate their passing. It would have to be cold in it and usually it was so constructed that one could neither sit or lay down nor stand upright in it, causing unbearable cramps after a short while. And since it was dark and lonesome, hallucinations would additionally plague the occupants. An oubliette was not a prison cell in that sense, but a gruesome murder weapon that did not require any doing on part of the executioner. And once the deed was done the perpetrator could still more or less wash their hands of it, given that the prisoner had technically died in captivity rather than at anybody’s hand.

“A room, I should think.” Laura said while Janna cleared her throat for emphasis. “A nice room with food, drink, a bed, books to read and whatever else she requires. Just don’t let her escape. And keep her alive, unless the ogres do not obey. If that happens, you kill her.”

She was talking to the countess but looked at the ogress called Mara the entire time instead.

When the Ironman was handed over into Franka’s custody, the question arose of who the girl was. There was a man, it so happened, who could provide a vague answer. It was Ordhan Herlogan with his grey eyes and hair, clad today in inlaid black and silver armour as well as a green cloak that bore his white unicorn on green. Laura found it a bit strange that he was so geared-up. If some Nordmarker shenanigans was underfoot, that might explain it, because some of Hagrobald's knights were armoured as well. The Duke himself, however, wore only noble attire, a thrown-together mix of green and silvery grey finery, albeit that on him, with his wild hair and beard, it looked a bit like someone had tried to dress up a particularly unkempt bear.

“She is the heir apparent of the Bordermark, Your Grace.” Ordhan said. “Lin...some such. I met her father once at Castle Crumold. Those marks on her face, I do recall them now. I believe he died, but she has not yet been declared a woman grown. Her steward would know more, a truly upright and honest man, if memory serves.”

The girl wimpered and more tears rolled down her cheeks again. She was as red as a newborn infant. Rarely had Laura seen anybody who so wanted to speak and yet did not dare to do so. Janna had frightened the girl good and proper, and Laura wanted to leave it at that.

“Wonderful.” She waved the issue aside like a swarm of flies. “You have your instructions. Don't disappoint me or there will be consequences.”

“There truly is scarcely an unmarried heir my trusty Baron of Lower Honingen does not know of.” Franka marvelled, full of sarcasm while ‘Lin...some such' was led away in tears.

Ordhan threw a brief glance at Laura before he replied: “Oh, my Lady of Galahan knows me too well. Alas, heirs tend to marry and inherit, so it is quite useful to know their names. It saves having to remember them later, when the question arises of what belongs to whom.”

Strangely, Franka seemed snobbed or disappointed by his reply, and Laura had no idea why. Was it that there were fiefs up for grabs, formerly belonging to families who had not declared for her? There was also the reasonable likelihood that Laura had squished Ordhan's youngest son, unmarried and serving as a knight somewhere in Winhall County, which made any line of questioning into this topic a venomous hole to prod. Or maybe she had merely misread Franka's reaction.

It was hard to tell whether or not something was truly off, especially with that small ogre army kneeling there ruining any semblance of normalcy. And they couldn’t kneel forever.

Janna said aloud what Laura was pondering: “If we are going to keep them, how and where do you intend to do that? You're not going to bank on them just sitting still forever, are you? They aren't sheep.”

Violating her earlier declaration, Janna took a sheered sheep from the ground and popped it in her mouth, but seemed to regret the decision a moment later. Raw sheep tasted like their stables smelled, but then again so did roasted ones, for the most part.

‘For fuck's sake,’ Laura thought, ‘please don't become a vegetarian too.’

“We can dig a hole, I guess?” She suggested. “Make it nice and deep and make trees into spikes at the top. It doesn't have to last forever.”

‘Only until we've fucked every last one of them flat.’

She really wished they could get on with that already. Her crotch was watering almost as much as her mouth.

“Dubious.” Janna shrugged. “But better than nothing. As a matter of fact, why not make them dig it themselves? It would save us from having to wash all over again.”

The idea rejuvinated Laura's enthusiasm for the hole thing. And it gave her another idea as well.

“Franka,” she said in the local tongue, “How would you like some strong help in rebuilding your city?”

Ere she could reply she was rudely interrupted by Duke Hagrobald who it seemed had just been told something in hushed-up confidence by one of his men: “Hah, nonsense! I've been looking for a jab to take at those money-pinching pepper sacks and their cronies! If they cannot reach the sea via Albernia then all the better! Especially Stoerrebrandt, those black-hatted bastards! They bought my steel when there was peace and when I needed it meself for the war they tried to charge me triple for the same material! Let them suffer!”

He became aware that everyone was now staring at him over his outburst but clearly did not feel the need to apologize.

“Strong help, Your Grace?” Franka asked, mildly amused. “Are you going to lift the stones yourself?”

Everyone was sceptical when they learned of the idea. Franka wailed about even more damage done to her city, Hagrobald laughed and Turon Taladan asked if it was wise. Nevertheless, Laura insisted. It had worked with Nagash, after all. Why shouldn't it work with Mara?

‘Why can't Honingen become my new Lauraville?’

Laura was yearning for it much, although it might have been just the lack of complications when she had just one village to organize.

Having great plans turned the chores left open into something truly agonzing. But nevertheless, food needed to be eaten and clothes needed to be dried. The food was as plain and boring as was expected but to Laura's luck Janna volunteered to do the drying while overseeing the hole being dug from a distance.

Laura chose a field in view of Galahan Palace so there would be warning in case of a breakout. Then Mara told her aghast brethren what they were to do.

Building the prison didn't require constant translation, however, so Laura took Mara and three others to the unsightly gash in the city wall she had made. It was weird doing all this naked, now barefoot too and under a blanket. The sun wasn't visible that day, but Laura guessed that it was already noon or past noon at this point.

This meant that their plan of dealing with the Red Curse was becoming more and more dubious.

But then again: ‘Why shouldn't we use the ogres for that too? They can help us yank out the whole damn forest!’

The black wizard's plan appeared more sensible with every passing hour. And it was so easy. The ogresses were grudging and disdainful about serving, but so far they obeyed marvellously, caring deeply for their Ironman. Laura wondered what might have happened if Janna didn't catch the tiny girl, ignoring her or even killing her by mistake. What had it been that tiny bitch had wanted? She couldn't even remember.

Honingen's masons, carpenters, architects and so forth were very apprehensive about Laura's idea too. They favored manpower and mechanics, winches, treadmill cranes and the like to overcome gravity. But once again, Laura was insisting.

They did not have a clear leader, and so talking to them felt weird. Laura appointed a random architect to deal with wall repairs while telling the others to deal with the rebuilding of crushed houses. When daytallers were called upon to remove the rubble from the breach, she stepped in the first time.

“Mara,” she said, “make two of your ogresses clear the stones out.”

She could have done it herself easily, but that wasn't the point. If truth be told, it felt a little stupid doing this. A queen should not have to micromanage in this fashion. But she had damaged the city and somebody had to get the ball rolling on fixing it.

The ogress hissed at her but relayed the command and two of the others stepped forward scowling to begin pushing out the rubble like living bulldozers.

From Laura's chosen architect, a portly, sweating man with a cleanly shaved skull, this earned her a gasp of astonishment.

Honingen's walls weren't all bricks, it turned out. Brick burning wasn't an exact science and required skilled specialists that travelled from place to place to sell their services. Instead, there was a thick framing of red brick and slabs of granite, limestone or other rock in between. It was neatly stacked but only scarcely mortared and looked somewhat thrown together.

“Oh, that is not so, My Queen!” Laura was informed by her man. “When one builds a castle, or some such, you're dealing with the piff, the paff and the puff! But here, with this red brick, things are obviously different!”

She didn't understand exactly how or why it was different, only that the piff was the hardest and the puff the softest stone and it mattered immensely which particular rock went where. Piff was identifiable by a darker colour and often a somewhat rusty taint, which told her that there was iron in those rocks.

“You are to work with these builders.” Laura told Mara when the breach was finally clear. “Do what they say, obey them, and don't kill any of them. Disobey and I will kill your little Ironman. And then my friend and I will flatten the lot of you too.”

To her surprise, the ogress did the exact opposite of what she wanted. The beastly barbie barked some sort of order in the ogre tongue to her brethren who was closest to the next builder, and that beast then went ahead and snatched the man off his feet.

Mara looked up at her with hate sparkling in her eyes: “We can do the same, naked giant. Release the Ironman or see your little friend die!”

Then she barked another order so that the ogress who had the hostage put both her hands around him, threatening to rip him in half.

Laura was truly perplexed for a moment before she had to laugh: “You misunderstand!”

Explaining it seemed both difficult and futile at the same time, so she held her hand out.

“Give him to me and I'll smush him myself. I kill hundreds of them every week.”

The city was listening, of course, but she didn't mind. It was the truth and surely lying was sinful.

“You're trying to trick us.” The ogress accused her. “No closer or we'll kill him!”

Laura rolled her eyes: “And wrong again!”

She took a quick step over the wall and placed her foot squarely atop a group of screaming workers, squelching them all in an instant under her bare sole. Their bursting bodies felt strangely warm against her cold, clammy skin so much so that she almost longed for a whole tub full of tiny people to take a footbath. The rest of the workers were struck by shock. Some turned to flee while others removed the covers from their heads and fell to their knees, almost as if they were praying to a god to spare them. It was a rather pleasant feeling Laura derived from this.

Mara's jaw was locked open as she understood the extend of her miscalculation, but the ogress with the hostage finished what she had threatened to do by tearing the struggling worker in two.

“Everyone, get back here!” Laura ordered. “Get back here or I'll flatten you all.”

She had half a mind to do it already, but not because of anger. Instead, she bent down and took the offending ogress by the waist. Mara was the real culprit, of course, but too important to kill. Nevertheless...

“Now she dies because of your stupidity.”

“No!” The talking ogress threw herself at Laura's foot that remained outside the walls. “Don't kill us, please! We will serve! We will do what you and your little humans say!”

Laura looked down at her with a smirk: “Yes, you will. I find disobedience highly annoying. And I squish things that annoy me.”

She was weighing in her mind whether she rather wanted to be alone with the condemned ogress or kill her here, and also whether or not she wanted to try and have sex with her first. She decided on crushing her here where Mara could see it. There were more than enough of them for some more intimate fun later.

“I'll tell you what,” Laura said, “I'll sit on her for a bit. If she can lift me off, I will not sit on her again. Sound fair?”

She didn't want ogre guts between her toes, but somehow on her butt that didn't seem half so gross to her.

Mara cried as a result, which looked weird on a woman so wild, but it didn't change Laura’s persuasion. The ogress to be killed was shaking with fear. She had straighter hair with twigs in it, roughly the dull brown colour of chocolate mousse. Her face was a bit long but she had beautiful, speckled eyes, green and yellow. Laura took only one brief look, however, for fear of growing attached.

She got rid of her blanket by shaking it off and put the ogress on the naked ground behind her heels. As luck would have it, she felt a fart coming and started off by farting straight in her victim's face. When she heard gagging, she stretched the barbie-sized woman down on the ground and proceeded to sit until there was enough pressure to get her hands free.

The ogress wasn't able to somehow magically lift her off, which was a strange kind of relief, so she just squashed her a little more while controlling the weight with her arms, thereby putting an end to the feeble attempts of clawing and scratching. The ogress' head was still sticking out from the side of her butt and judging by the look on that face it wasn't a very pleasurable experience. Before long, however, Laura grew tired of holding herself up.

“Smush!” She giggled when she let go.

Her body sunk into the ground a bit, driving the ogress with her. A harder surface would have been better for crushing, but to kill it would probably work. Tiny humans, if that was the right word in light of things, sometimes survived through some fluke, precisely because they were so tiny. An ogre possessed no such luck.

Mara was cowering on the floor, bawling into her knees.

“Oh, don't act so agrieved.” Laura scolded her. “I'm sure you do the same to smaller things.”

She wanted to see what her butt had done to the little ogress and reversed her previous movement to peak over her shoulder and take a look. A violent twitch went through the young, barbie-sized woman and a mouthful of dark red blood erupted from her mouth, much as though she was still alive. She didn’t really look very lively other than that, but just in case, Laura sat right back down and reached for her blanket. The little ogress could be her seat cushion for the time being even if that was a slightly wet affair. It wasn’t because of guts, but because of the blood. It had been coming out of those mismatched eyes as well. But other than this, the body was soft, warm and comfortable to sit on. Laura enjoyed being big and heavy.

“Do what I say, and I won’t have to crush any more of you.” She told Mara.

And she very much meant that. An obedient little force of these ogresses could be immensely useful to have, clearly. The problem at hand was that they could very easily overpower the little people when Janna and Laura weren’t there to watch over them. She’d have to put that to the test. If it didn’t work, all she’d lose were a few more tiny people.

She went on: “Even if you decide to abandon your Ironman…”

“Never!” Mara snapped through teeth violently clenched.

“Yes,” Laura chuckled, “but even if you were so inclined, we’d just have to follow your footsteps and find you. And then we’ll crush you all. You belong to us now. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

Mara nodded ever so slightly and with renewed hatred plastered over her face. It reminded Laura of Nagash. That ogress had been very useful as well, although Mara was a tad prettier. All the ogresses were, far as Laura could tell.

Crane duty was not particularly challenging at any level, be it physical or intellectual, even to the ogres. Worse yet, it turned out that at the breach the builders, who were now absolutely terrified, had no real need for them. Once the stones were cleared out it was just a matter of putting them back. Some mortar needed to be made with slaked lime, sand, water and some binding material like straw. The beginning of their work, however, was necessarily done at ground level. Only later on would there be need for scaffolding and lifting things high. Some stones needed to be replaced as well, because they had simply broken or been nearly pulverized under Laura’s weight. It went to show what kind of hassle she was able to put on the little people just by walking.

With the breach cleared, Laura ordered her three remaining workers to help with the houses instead. Rubble needed to be cleared there too, building material needed to be moved or made anew. There was need for wood, some of which was in form of long heavy beams it took several men to carry while an ogress could carry multiple over a long distance without so much as breaking a sweat.

They would be great at breaking stones as well, Laura thought, remembering the small quarry up north near Iauncyll. Technically, the ogresses could be great at pretty much anything that wasn’t very filigree work, like weaving sticks for daub and wattle houses. Logging, ploughing fields, digging clay,  digging ditches, logistics, surface mining, perhaps even hunting game. It was strange that they hadn’t taken over the world, or attempted to do so earlier, given how much bigger and more capable they seemed than the regular humans. They were somewhat stupid and their language sounded like it was spectacularly unsuited for complicated things like engineering, as most primitive languages were. But the sheer difference in size and power had to account for something. It had to be a major effort for the tiny human beings to kill even one ogress, let alone an army of them.

And as a goon squad as Janna had suggested, Laura couldn't have hoped for anything better. But she didn't trust them enough for that yet.

It turned out to be a long day that nevertheless almost flew by her. She got so involved in the building projects, including the commission of a new big and beautiful mages college, that she was surprised when it suddenly became evening. The days were growing shorter, but of yesterday’s plans she and Janna had achieved almost nothing.

That was when she learned that all her ambitious rebuilding was wholly idiotic.

“What happens to the mortar when it freezes?” Janna had asked a passing stone mason after she came over from her other duties.

Laura had arranged for food to be cooked in the city once more because of the terrible breakfast. Preparations necessarily started early and were still going on all around. It was very much improvised now, a community effort. Honingen had shrunk considerably.

“Then it don’t dry!” The man replied. “If it gets real cold and it's too wet then it cracks too and the whole bloody wall gives way!”

Laura wanted to stuff her hand into her mouth and bite on it as hard as she could.

It took a great deal of effort to remain calm: “And why didn’t anyone tell me so before?!”

The man wasn’t a foxy one but possessed enough sense to know that he was in trouble. Laura was already contemplating his end.

“We…you said build, milady!” He chewed his lip. “And so…so we did!”

She couldn’t do anything else but hang her head then, and Janna’s laughter was making everything even worse. This was probably why a queen shouldn’t micromanage. But at least the ogresses had proved useful.

It was too late to go to the Farindel. It was too cold to rebuild Honingen. And Laura was too not in the mood anymore to have sex. It was truly depressing.

Worse yet, it was still a little too early to go to bed.

-

Janna inspected Honingen from up close. It looked used somehow, although that description was probably problematic in and of itself. Laura had ploughed right through one part of it, and then selectively demolished other bits here and there. She also must have killed many people but Janna didn’t really get to reprimand her for it after killing Signor Hatchet and that unfortunate little herald.

The latter was…a tragedy, but one she didn’t entirely blame herself for. She had still been half asleep, practically not herself. She felt for the guy and everything, but it was more accident than anything else.

Hatchet, on the other Hand, had not been like that. She had tried not to kill him. She had known that what she was doing was wrong and dangerous. And she did it anyway, just to get herself off. To be fair, at that time, the urge had been very, very strong. But she ought to have been able to control it. Of course, in how far one was actually in control of one’s own actions was still the subject of debate among scientists from many different fields, albeit that this discussion wasn’t really going anywhere. It was mostly definition wars and word games.

Afterwards, Janna had lied about it. She hadn’t ripped Hatchet’s head off. In truth, she did not really have cogent idea what had happened to him while she fingered herself and bit her tongue to keep quiet, which made breathing difficult but somehow made the orgasm even better. After she came, Hatchet was but a thin, pink film clinging to her fingers. It glistened in the firelight ere she wiped it off somewhere.

“Hrgh, fuck!” Laura moaned, pouting.

She didn’t look too good and was visibly frustrated with the futility of her work.

“You can rebuild with wood for now.” Janna advised carefully. “But first you should figure out how many houses you really need. I mean, it was late, right? Those houses you stepped on were probably occupied, so there might be no need for them anymore.”

It was a horrible thought but nonetheless true. On the other hand, Laura was less destructive when she was building, and she seldom destroyed things she had built herself.

Janna added: “Why not turn this into a positive and make Honingen better?”

It was insanely insensitive to say such a thing out loud given how many must have died. Honingen had been home to north of three thousand inhabitants at one point, especially with the refugees from Winhall. How many were left was hard to tell, half or so if Janna was any judge. It was surreal to think about realistically. On Earth, somebody who so casually caused the deaths one and a half thousand people would be considered one of the vilest human beings alive. And yet, here Janna sat right next to one. And she herself had probably even more on her conscience.

That wasn’t the point, though. It was time to look ahead, make a better future.

Laura took the bait and asked: “What do you mean, better? Better, how?”

“Well,” Janna smiled, “a mages college is cool, but do you know what’s even cooler? Schools! Hospitals! Women’s shelters, homeless’ shelters, uh…”

Once again she realized that she wasn’t exactly good at this, but she had to keep trying.

“Social…clubs, maybe? Youth centres?”

Laura laughed: “Ninety nine percent of people work from child age, Janna, they have no use for youth centres.”

Janna shrugged: “They will if you give them schools. Children shouldn’t work but learn and have fun. Once they’re out of school, their productivity should offset any social cost by a substantial margin.”

“I thought you were giving them the reins?” Laura cocked an eyebrow. “What happened to self-government?”

“Somebody stepped on it.” She replied sourly.

If truth be told, even while wholeheartedly for it in the moment, Janna had come to doubt the tiny people’s ability to govern themselves in a way that she could approve of. They were bigoted and stupid and mostly uneducated. Maybe a benevolent dictatorship was necessary for a couple of years before their societies could truly be set free. Schooling was the first step in any case.

“I was high.” Laura showed her palms in a not entirely serious defence. “I swear I wasn’t even actively trying to crush the rebellion. They thought I was, but I was only high and…super-duper hungry. I’m sorry, for what it’s worth.”

The tiny people lived in utter terror of Laura. Everyone was working at breakneck speed. She had probably killed more of them while Janna hadn’t been looking. She was blind to their humanity, seeing them as little more than bugs.

“As I said,” Janna repeated, “schools, hospitals, social institutions. Build back better. That’s the least we can do.”

Laura nodded half-way but frowned and said: “I don’t think that’s really how it works, Janna.”

Janna sighed. She didn’t want to have an argument again, not now anyway. Staring into a fire while holding clothes was exhausting, not to mention the little training session she had engaged in to revitalize her muscles. She had been mostly inactive for too long and hadn’t eaten enough as well. The loss of a couple of pounds in weight, or probably hundreds of tons respectively, was definitely a good thing. But she needed to be fit too, and just a few crunches, sit-ups und jumping jacks had already left her muscles sore and aching. Her jumping jacks had also caused a small earthquake that had collapsed a farmstead next to her feet, but it had luckily been abandoned and already in disrepair.

It was a stark reminder of her power.

“What if…” Laura bit her lip and sought Janna’s eyes with her own. “What if I gave you a city? You have so many great ideas on how to help the little people, so why not take the opportunity to see if they really work? I promise I’ll never set foot in it without your permission.”

Janna thought on that for a moment. There seemed to be numerous pros and cons. What she had to look for were dealbreakers.

“Split up again?” She asked. “I thought we were over that.”

Laura shook her head: “It wouldn’t have to be far. I mean, Abilacht is super close to Honingen, even in the same county. We haven’t been there yet but the rebellion there is over, and I bet there’s need for rebuilding so you can put up all that stuff you want. You can give them proper wastewater management or whatever, solve their gender issues…”

“Fuck you.” Janna laughed.

She was warming up to the idea quickly.

“First thing tomorrow is Red Curse, though.” She reminded Laura.

At the very top of the to-do list were still Steve and Christina as well. Getting them back was very important to Janna. She just didn’t have even the slightest idea on how to even begin tackling the issue. They had no knowledge of what Andergast or Nostria for that matter looked like at the moment. There was no information coming through and they had nobody on the inside they could ask. Their little, outsourced infiltration attempt through the Horasians had apparently failed.

“How are your ogres doing?” Janna asked. “Were they…trustworthy?”

“Pretty much.” Laura said, although she had to look around a bit before she found them again. “Hey!”

She got up and started walking, a tiny woman with a wheelbarrow narrowly avoiding her foot.

“Who told you, you could slack off?!”

Janna got up as well and paid a look. The three ogresses were sitting on the ground by a fire, warming their feet and resting outside the city walls. The logs they had been carrying were repurposed to get their butts of the clammy ground.

“Your human said we could!” Mara spat hatefully up at Laura. “That one there!”

It was an act of defiance, regardless of whether or not it was true.

“Is this true?!” Laura rounded on the little man.

He was leading an oxcart with a mule in the yoke, much too small and puny to drag the load of wood efficiently.

The man stammered a lot before a coherent meaning formed: “She said she’d eat my wife and children, Your Grace!”

Laura turned to Janna: “Can you believe this?”

It wasn’t really a question, and as angry as Laura was, she also seemed to find it darkly amusing.

“I give you this one, you little shits.” She laughed. “Now back to work or I’ll squash another of you. And no more threatening my humans!”

She came back to her previous spot where she could observe everything inside the city quite well.

“I was just thinking…” Janna started, aware of how stupid it sounded in light of what they just saw. “If it turns out that we can trust the ogres, maybe we can send them to Andergast to free Christina and Steve.”

Laura turned her head: “That’s brilliant!”

The thought process that played out on her face went from excited to gloomed, however.

“Except, then Mara would have hostages on us. We’d have to basically let them go, which is already assuming that we can exchange the Ironman for our friends without any catastrophes happening.”

Janna remembered Furio’s little acolyte, that bald girl named Rondria. She couldn’t let something like that happen to Steve.

“Maybe we’ll get them sorted out in time.” Laura shook her head and shrugged. “Too early to tell.”

Janna was desperate and hated her helplessness in this situation: “But we have to do something!”

Laura pursed her lips: “How about we send Dari on a little recon mission? Where is she by the way, I haven’t seen her all day.”

Now Janna shrugged: “I didn’t kill her, if that’s what you mean. Although, you probably did.”

“Fuck!”

She started calling out for the girl, which was more than a little awkward for Janna. The idea sounded pretty neat, though, if Dari was still alive. Janna didn't stand to lose anything other than the opportunity to kill the girl herself.

“Oh, by the way,” She said happily, “that hole they're digging?”

“Yeah?” Laura made absentmindedly while scanning the streets and alleys. “Any good?”

Janna shook her head: “Absolutely not, it’s complete shit. You couldn't trap a dog in there.”

Somehow, it made her want to laugh out loud, but Laura had probably suffered enough humiliation for one day.