Chapter 10

"Wake up! Laura, wake up!" Someone called in the distance, and Laura had a sudden deja vu of their crash when she had woken up from stasis.

She didn't take long to work out that it was coming from the table. The voice, though tiny and weak, made it sound rather urgent. From the corner of her eye, she found Janna's bed already empty. That wasn't uncommon and she thought nothing of it at first.

"What's up?" She asked towards the table, tiredly rubbing her face.

"Steve is missing!" It came back and Laura's rheum encrusted eyes shot open.

Now she saw Christina, visibly upset, walking up and down in front of their tiny space ship. Valerie was standing next to the door, leaning against the frame.

"Are you sure?" Laura asked and rushed over.

"Yes!" Christina explained hurriedly. "He always goes out for an early run but where would he have gone? Janna is missing too!"

That was alarming indeed, Laura thought, although she knew she couldn't let Valerie and Christina know about that. She was in a pickle, really, because if she went out and looked for them, as reason told her she should, she'd reveal her concerns. She would have to go look, but play it down first.

"Well, maybe she took him with her." She suggested with a shrug.

"Or maybe she ate him." Valerie threw back venomously but not so much that it tainted her cool demeanour.

Christina looked helpless.

"Where do you get off talking like that?!" Laura shot at her, finding it a good way to cause some distraction. "I'm awake ten seconds and you're already bitching. Have either of us done anything that would warrant accusing us of fucking cannibalism?"

"She's right, Val." Christina said calmly. "You are not helping."

Valerie looked unimpressed.

"How is your period, Laura?" She asked coldly.

Laura cringed involuntarily. She hadn't even put in any cotton wad to pretend she was on it. Valerie was much too smart for her own good. Laura fought for an answer but couldn't come up with one in time.

"Yeah, that's what I thought." The tall, blonde pilot added cynically.

Laura was getting a headache already. She was still too tired for this.

"Laura?" Christina asked concerned after a few seconds, clearly expecting her to come up with an answer.

"I don't know why there was blood, okay?" Laura snapped. "Vags are complicated and sometimes they bleed. Maybe I should have it checked out. You wanna go down there and do that?"

"But I saw someone struggle in there." Valerie rebutted heatedly now.

"You think you saw movement in the twilight of yesterday night." Laura corrected her. "How can you find it more likely that I would put a tiny person in my panties?"

"Normal sized person." Valerie shot back. "And I don't know what the fuck you giant freaks get off on."

"But it is more likely that you saw a shadow, right?" Christina feebly tried to bring reason into the debate.

Laura wanted to thank her but even more she wanted for this dangerous conversation to end. This was growing more important than looking for Steve by the second.

"I don't think so." Valerie argued. "Think about it. First there is movement, she sits down, then there's blood. I've been thinking about it all night."

"Well, maybe you should have slept instead of pulling conspiracy theories out of your ass." Laura commented snidely.

"Maybe you shouldn't put people in your panties!" Valerie sneered back.

"It could have been an animal." Chistina pointed out. "It may have crawled in there or something."

"Oh, come on!" Valerie fell out at the black girl. "What is the likelihood of that?"

Laura didn't like were the conversation was going. Group-think was working more and more against her.

"And somehow, me, putting a person down my pants, is more likely?" She tried to swing it back around.

"She has a point, Val." Christina commented and raised an eyebrow.

Valerie just glared at Laura.

"I saw, what I saw." She repeated her phrase from the day before. "She's a fucking monster, Chris. They probably both are."

"Let's say that's true." Laura argued tiredly. "Wouldn't you think, maybe, I would have done something to you guys by now?"

"You're afraid." Valerie explained. "You will have to explain our deaths when help gets here."

"Valerie." Laura said, calmly. "There is so many ways to kill you, you don't even know. And if I wanted to, I could make it look just like an accident. I could sneeze you guys off this table right now. Or sweep you off, or drop something on you or whatever."

She let them chew on that for a moment.

'I could even crush your ship and keep you as my toe slave for the rest of your miserable life for being such an obnoxious, little bitch.' She thought to herself.

"But see, I don't do that." She said instead. "You know why? Because I'm not what you say I am."

"That doesn't change the fact that you had a person in your underwear that you killed!" Valerie adamantly refused to back down.

"Chris, you believe me right?" Laura turned away from Valerie.

Since the tall blonde was not going to be convinced, it was a battle for the little black girl's mind now.

"Yeah, I guess..." Christina struggled. "I don't know..."

"I can't fucking believe this." Laura acted sore and turned away in a huff.

"I'm sorry!" Christina justified herself. "I don't know what is true any more. I mean, look at his shit!"

She gestured around at the, to her, gargantuan space ship.

"Can you go out and find Steve, please?" She asked hesitantly after a while that Laura had acted hurt and looked outside.

Laura chose not to answer. If Janna came back right now, with a happy and jolly Steve in her hand, that would be best. But she didn't come.

"He's dead. She knows it." Valerie needled on, calmly, evilly sneering.

"No he's not!" Christina said firmly, much to Laura's surprise. "Give her a break, Val."

"Give her a break?!" Valerie screeched hysterically. "She killed someone!"

"You don't know that!" Christina shot back. "She's innocent until proven guilty!"

Laura's act was finally bearing fruits.

"She's ninety meters tall!" Valerie pointed at Laura's face, to them, at least twenty meters above. "She is jury, judge and executioner here! You heard her say how easily she can kill us."

"Yes." Christina's voice was firm as iron. "We have no choice but to trust her."

"But she's a monster!" Valerie repeated.

"You can say that all you want." The tiny black girl followed up. "Until you have concrete evidence, all that is, is a stupid allegation. And it's taking us nowhere, Val."

"Why are you taking her side all of a sudden?" Valerie asked aggrieved. "Why don't you insist she prove her innocence before you trust her?"

Pilots often were not the smartest of people, Laura remembered.

"And how exactly do I do that, huh?" Laura rejoined the conversation. "Do you want video footage of all the shit we've been through since Janna and I got here?!"

"That would be a start!" Valerie roared at her in response.

Christina shook her head with a grimace of pain on her face: "Val, go inside, grab a soda and cool your fucking head."

"But..." Valerie began.

"Now!" Christina shouted, much louder than she had spoken before. "You are giving me a fucking headache with your bullshit!"

Valerie glared at her for a second before she turned so abruptly that her blonde hair flew to the side and rushed into the space ship.

There was a moment of silence after all that unpleasantness.

"I'm sorry." Christina began slowly. "She's been grumpy every since we got here and I'm still kinda confused about all this shit."

"So, you guys have sodas?" Laura asked in response, her voice filled with envy.

"Yeah, we do." Christina said softly. "Along with all the other conveniences an explorer-class ship brings. Rations, hot showers...a toilet. Looks like of your ship only the boring science part is left."

"Pretty much." Laura chuckled bitterly and grinned.

"Yay for science." Christina chimed monotonously into the melancholy.

"I'd give you one of 'dem sodas to cheer your ass up, but I think you couldn't even taste dat." She added after a second, letting her original low-class accent fly.

Laura smiled again. She didn't even know if she was still acting hurt by then or if she was genuinely sad. All she knew was that she would kill for a can of soda or a hot shower.

"So, Steve?" Laura asked after another while of thinking.

"I'm sure he's fine." Christina said reassuringly. "Just...make sure he really is, okay?"

When Laura left the ship she couldn't see Janna anywhere. But when her eyes fell on the giant corpses in her village, she ran over there and demanded to know what had happened. Expecting her loyal foreman Dexter to step forward, she was perplexed to not see him anywhere and grew displeased. The villagers had laid down their labour and watched her anxiously. Nagash was the first one to respond to her, when no one else did.

"He is dead." The tiny giantess said crisply in her raw voice.

"How?" Laura demanded to know.

"The giants." Came the equally crisp reply.

"What happened?"

"They attacked us." The Barbie-doll-sized woman shrugged.

Laura waited for a more detailed reply to follow.

"They attacked us last night." Nagash reported eventually. "They wanted to take me with them but I didn't want to go. So they killed Dexter and tried to kill me too. Then we killed them."

Laura didn't have time to deal with this. She snatched the dead bodies up to take them with her before she addressed the whole village.

"I am pleased with what you did." She told them. "As a reward, I will not kill any of you today. I will choose a new foreman later."

"Goddess." Nagash began insecurely when Laura had finished. "It seems your weak, human foremen are dying like flies. I will last longer. Humans do what I say. We have prepared breakfast already.”

That was true, Laura saw now, though the amount of food was considerably less than on Dexter's first breakfast. It would still be enough though, she thought. She was already looking forward to fill her hungry gut. Looking around the village she saw that Nagash was the only one of them now she knew by name.

"Good. You are my new foreman, uh...forewoman then." Laura announced, pleased. "Have you seen my friend, Janna?"

They pointed her to the lake where she saw her bare chested lover bathing and took her leave of them after freeing her new foreperson from the thread around her neck. Surely, to fulfil her new duties, Nagash needed the freedom of movement. Also, Laura decided, the fact that she had chosen Lauraville over her own kind, sort of earned her that right.

-

"Act normal." Janna hissed at Steve through a broad smile when Laura approached.

She let go of him and he swam a few centimetres away and started treading water.

"There you are." Laura greeted her, smiling as well.

Her hands were filled with the three giant corpses Janna had seen earlier.

"So you found them." She remarked, nodding at them. "What's that all about?"

"I'll tell you later." Laura evaded the question. "Have you seen Steve?"

"I'm here!" Steve called from below.

He had to speak really loudly for Laura to hear him at that distance.

"Oh! Hi!" Laura said perplexed but visibly happy to see him. "Uh...what are you up to?"

"Just bathing." Janna shrugged. "He begged me to let him take a run, so I took him here."

"That and a boob show, I see." Laura commented with a smirk.

"Ey, I only have this one shirt and I can't wash it when I wear it." Janna protested in reply, giving the soaking fabric next to her a nudge.

"And he doesn't mind?" Laura went on, hinting at Steve.

"Nah, he's gay." Janna laughed in reply.

"No, I'm not?!" Steve protested, finally getting his old wits about him. "You're just fat!"

Janna didn't mind. She knew she wasn't fat.

"Don't be mean." Laura joined in, smiling. "Janna just has some...lovable extra inches."

"Wanna join us?" Janna asked casually after a moment had passed.

"No, actually..." Laura began. "I was kinda looking for Steve. The others were worried sick when you guys were gone this morning."

"Nothing to worry about." Janna said innocently. "We were just bathing."

"Just leave a note next time or something." Laura said, making a face. "You don't know the kind of shit I had to take from Valerie. Come on big guy, better get inside."

She crouched down and Janna could see beneath her T-shirt right onto her panty-covered crotch. A fully grown lover was still better, Janna decided, even if it was a girl. Laura put her hand in the water next to Steve and let him climb on. Janna wasn't worried. After all that had happened that morning, surely he would keep his little mouth shut.

Laura took him and the three giant bodies with her and returned soon after with neither of them. By that time, Janna had climbed out of the pond and hung her shirt on the ship to dry.

The embrace was sudden and passionate and they kissed non-stop for a few minutes. It wasn't a initiating-sex kind of kiss, it was more loving, caring, almost familiar. Laura was full of love and longing for her, Janna could tell, and she returned these feelings but doing it openly in front of their classmates was something she was still not comfortable with.

"I'm sorry." Janna said when pulling out of it.

Janna could see that her lover knew what she was talking about.

"It's okay." Laura said softly. "I'm a little embarrassed too."

"Let's wait a while longer and adjust to them." Janna suggested. "It will get easier."

They went over to the village together to have breakfast once more and were both pleased to see that it had already been prepared for them. Laura explained that the tiny giantess Nagash was in charge of it now and that they could trust her not to run away because of what happened with the giants the night before. There was a drop of bitterness in that, Janna found. It had been fun to use the little doll-sized girl for sex. But on the other hand, as proven by the bodies Laura had left inside the space ship, there were many more too be had. They'd only have to find them.

Janna noticed that the amount of food was considerably smaller this time. Still, it would suffice to fill both of them. The question was, for how long the village could keep up the supply. Her mouth watered as she looked over the carts, wagons, barrels and baskets of fruit, bread, vegetables and meat. To her surprise, on top of one cart full of meat, she saw the leather clad body of a girl.

It seemed familiar, somehow, and she gingerly picked it up to look at it more closely. The tiny thing was limp and unmoving.

"Hey Nagash, why do you give us dead people to eat?" She asked, a little disappointed.

"There was always dead humans in your food." The tiny giantess said, unconcerned. "Dead humans taste good."

Laura almost choked on the cart of meat she had just dumped into her mouth and swallowed. Her eyes met Janna's.

"I suppose it's okay." Janna said in English after a while. "I didn't get a bad stomach or anything before."

"Still...I don't know..." Laura whispered back insecurely.

"We eat'em anyway, might as well eat the dead ones." Janna pointed out. "Plus, I'd rather eat corpses than starve."

"But isn't it kind of cannibalism anyway? I mean...eating people? They're so much more human than we thought, after all." Laura said unconvinced.

"They're not our species, so no, it's not." Janna explained with a mild grin. "There's no way we could be genetically related to them at this planetary distance."

Having said it, it made the aliens' hominid appearance all the more weird once again. She looked closer at the girl, dangling by a leg in between her fingers. She was sure she had seen this tiny one before.

"Wait a minute!" She exclaimed in the local tongue. "I know this one! This one killed a giant! She's that fierce, little fighter brat."

"Aww." Laura sounded disappointed.

"Aye." Nagash said, entirely unconcerned. "Looks like she killed two of last nights attackers and gouged the fat one's eyes out before she was injured."

"Injured?" Janna asked perplexed. "She's alive?"

"She is breathing." Nagash shrugged. "But she will not wake up. Dexter always said not to waste any meat. She is meat."

Now Janna was disappointed too. She remembered how relentlessly the tiny girl had fought in her mouth and how she had decided to spare her because of that. Had she not forgotten about her, she would surely have revisited to play. There were lots of games she might have played with the poor little thing, but even only eating her would have been a fun experience. This way, limp and unconscious, she was no fun at all. But Nagash was right, she supposed, the little girl was food.

"Janna!" Laura called out when Janna was about to drop her into her mouth. "I promised them not to kill anyone today."

"Well, you didn't speak for me." Janna laughed and lowered the girl further.

"Wait!" Laura said demandingly. "I want to keep her. If she really can kill giants, I need her in the village. They might come back!"

That was true, Janna thought, but she didn't have a mind to be ordered around.

"That's if she ever wakes up." She rebutted and shook the tiny, leather clad thing to bring it home.

"Look, she's all limp and boring anyway." Laura argued. "I'll give you a live one for her."

Janna really liked the sound of that.

"Three." She demanded the first reasonable number off the top of her head. "Three stupid little villagers for the tiny, unconscious fighter."

She smirked and Laura bit her lip.

"Fine." Came the response, much more light hearted than Janna had expected. "Choose whom you like, but no more."

-

Nagash was cautious. She found her new position much more befitting, but as much as she liked it, she always had to be on her heels when dealing with Laura and Janna. Janna, pleasuring herself ontop of her while fingering Daisy to pieces, was still a vivid memory in her mind. She couldn't wait until the gargantuan beasts had eaten and left, making her the giantess in the village once again.

Without the rope around her neck there was a multitude of things she could do, but also many responsibilities. Nagash had never really been in charge of anything before, other than maybe a few human slaves. The best way, she reckoned, was to do things the way Dexter would have done them and keep a tight regiment in the village. What she lacked in experience, she had in size and strength. The thought of escape hat crossed her mind again, but if she was honest with herself, she had to say that this new development was intriguing enough to make her stay.

She didn't want a part in Albino's war, and while she was in lack of a family, this village would provide food, human slaves and something to do for her. Ever since she had gotten into the village, neither Janna nor Laura had touched her. Surely, if she ran away, they'd punish her, and it would not be pretty.

"Here." The giantess called Laura suddenly addressed Nagash and gently lowered unconscious Dari so that Nagash could take her. "Treat her, let her rest and see that she wakes up again. I want her to survive."

Nagash took the body carefully from Laura's hand. She didn't like it. Laura would be angry if the strange little human didn't survive but that was not the only thing that bugged her. The ease, skill and precision with which Dari had killed in the attack last night was causing Nagash a great deal of discomfort. Humans were dangerous when they wore their shiny suits, long lances and swords. Dari was not supposed to be able to kill giants like that.

Nagash had rather Janna had eaten the little girl. Now she couldn't even kill Dari herself, as per Laura's orders. Cure her, Nagash thought, and then brake her, subdue her and make her a willing slave like all the others. When Laura had announced Nagash to be the new foreperson, the villagers had exchanged a few looks but she knew no one would ever dare question her openly. No doubt, the memory of how she had repelled the attack on Dexter was still on the forefront of the villager's minds and Nagash planned on adding a few more memories for them to remember.

It was frightening to see how fast the titanesses consumed the food. A cart that would have fed Nagash twice wasn't even half a mouthful to them. More, Nagash thought, they'd have to produce more food. From what she could see the villagers were still able to pull a lot out of the surrounding forests but at the current rate, that would not suffice to provide a meal for Laura and Janna every day. She had heard of Dexter's raid. A smart move, she judged, still accounting for the vast majority of their offering.

If there wasn't enough food, Janna and Laura could of course always eat villagers. As if on queue, Janna reached into the onlookers and took three of them up to her maw, greeting them with a menacing grin. Nagash was glad not to be a human. Nagash ate humans, bite for bite, but Janna could just swallow them whole if she wanted to, and several of them at once. The huge tongue came out and licked the gargantuan lips. Janna had chosen two hunters and a builder, but Nagash couldn't tell if she payed that any mind.

They screamed, begged and grovelled but if Nagash was any judge, it made Janna only more determined to eat them.

She made them watch as her boulder sized teeth reduced two carts of turnips and meat to a fine paste at once. Then the builder followed, dropped gently on the giantess' tongue, before he was swept inside and sealed from view behind Janna's lips. Pressed together, the lips gave him him chance of escape, but Nagash saw Janna's jaw move as well. When the mouth opened again he was gone, or at least that's what Nagash thought at first. On second glance he was still there, mingled with Janan's spittle, torn apart, dissolved, only a few bones betraying that he had been a man.

The display of sheer power made even Nagash tremble. All around, mumbles, whimpers and prayers were uttered, not a small deal of them directed at Laura. The two hunters on Janna's hand lost their minds in an instant. Their screaming was so loud, so shrill and so utterly mad that even Janna seemed discomforted by it.

"Shhhhh." She cooed at them from above, sounding as gentle as a mother.

It was in vain though, Nagash thought, she could have put the men down and sent them back to their families, they would have screamed still. But it worked, their agonizing screams stopped.

"That's better." Janna showed a friendly smile. "I like my food sane and quiet."

They were silent after that, even after Janna took the first hunter and dropped him onto her tongue. He sat down, quietly, as though taking a rest after a hard day's work before her lips closed again and everyone could see her swallow.

The last man seemed to talk to her for a little but was too far away fro Nagash to hear. Janna listened carefully, before she smiled again and opened her hand at Laura. The man was standing upright, balancing against the gentle shaking of Janna's gargantuan hand.

"Goddess!" He addressed Laura. "You have seen fit to sacrifice me and I go willingly! I pray, you will protect my wife, for as long as she lives, and watch over her!"

He bowed down submissively after that.

At first Laura looked perplexed but then she smiled warmly and said: "I will. Let your wife come forward to let me see who she is."

A young woman, crying and whimpering, was shoved forward until she went on her own, staggeringly at first.

"Ahh." Laura smiled generously and reached for her. "Is she it?"

The man nodded in response and Nagash thought she could even see him smile.

Then, so suddenly that nobody could react, she threw the woman into her mouth and popped her between her molars like a cherry.

"No!" The man on Janna's hand screamed while he had to watch his wife being chewed noisily in his goddess' mouth.

Laura was grinning like a child after she swallowed: "Your wife is in me now. Quite an honour if you ask me. It's the closest she could ever be to me."

The man had no time to respond because Janna's hand was lifted and tilted until he slid into Janna's maw were he was pulped into mash the same way his wife had been.

"Gods, protect us." Someone whispered near Nagash and was instantly hit behind the head and told to shut up by someone else.

"Laura giveth, and she taketh away." Someone whispered on the other side and quickly the villagers returned to normal.

It was astounding to Nagash, to see, what humans were willing to get used to. As for Laura breaking her promises, she wasn't surprised. Someone this big and powerful didn't need to stick to her word.

-

Dari awoke in a bed of straw. Her head hurt and her vision was blurry at first but her senses didn't take long to come back to her. When she tried to get up, a small, gentle hand held pushed against her chest.

"Stop, you need rest!" A weak female voice urged her.

It belonged to a pretty, young girl in a relatively good dress, by Lauraville's standards. The girl handed her a bowl of water and let her drink. Discomfort spread from Dari's chest into her belly, for she knew who the girl was. It was one of Birsel's newest acquisitions.

Outside the sun was shining bright already. Dari had no idea for how long she had been knocked out, but she remembered being thrown by the fat ogress and crashing into something hard. Her body was covered in bruises but she was used to that from growing up poor in the city. She seemed to have hit her head too, but that as well was nothing that had kept her from functioning before.

"She's awake!" The girl yelped when Birsel herself suddenly rushed through the door, accompanied by a bang and a gust of wind. She wore the best dress by far, having it taken off one of the refugees and she was a comparatively small, weak girl herself. Her aura, however, was that of a baroness.

"Good." Brisel said crisply, sounding as though her time as unbearably valuable. "How do you feel?"

"My head hurts." Dari answered, unsure what to make of all this.

"Nothing else?" Brisel inquired with a sharply raised brow.

Dari shook her head.

"Splendid." Birsel remarked coldly. "Than you will be out of my house even quicker."

Dari had no intention of lingering there any longer than necessary, but it seemed odd that whoever was in charge now put her in this of all homes.

Birsel seemed to be able to read her mind, because she said: "Oh, you wonder why you are here, do you?"

The smile that followed foreshadowed something bad.

"Nagash the forewoman took that filthy raider's place. She told me to train you and bring you back to her." She continued, still smirking virulently. "You're pretty enough. Still, I don't like taking orders from anyone but the goddess herself. Dexter or Foreman would never have dared to make me do this..."

That was bad. Not only did Nagash not trust her, Dari had always resented the idea of becoming one of Birsel's whores. And now that she would inevitably become one, she would serve Nagash and never get into the giant, iron thing to rescue the druid. She had half a mind to get up, kill them all and run. But there was still the possibility of Nagash helping her, if only she could be convinced. Or maybe she'd be handed over to Laura or Janna at some point. The chance of success was dubious, but still the best shot Dari had. She didn't even know if there was a way to do the climb on her own.

Biting her own cheek for what she was about to say, Dari sat up in the bed: "I'm ready for you to teach me, I feel fine. I've had much worse than this."

Birsel looked surprised but smiled.

"Well, in that case..." She said and started lifting her dress.

Dari's head was still pounding when she lowered her head in between Birsel's legs. She knew exactly what she was doing. In Gareth, the nobility and moneyed aristocracy had their freaks and sexual extravagances too. Many a masked ball Dari had been to had in fact been an orgy where every could indulge with whom ever they liked, living out their fantasies, what ever they were.

It didn't take her long to let Birsel believe she was a natural, but instead of calling it off, the girl really seemed to be enjoying herself. Dari hated her for it.

"Good, good, good!" Birsel moaned as her womenhood contracted and spasmed in pleasure.

With flushed cheeks and panting, Birsel still had the audacity to tell Dari she needed more practise, an excuse to keep her around, as Dari well knew. The idea of killing the arrogant whoremonger came back to her head. Then they left her alone in the room, before the other girl returned to bring some soup before leaving again. Part of her welcomed the opportunity to catch up on her sleep and get some rest but all she really wanted was to finish her mission and let this nightmare be over.

-

On the construction sites, Nagash still helped the villagers erect the large wooden frames but did not have to linger around any more for the small hands' work. The titanesses had retreated into the giant metal thing for now, after the rest of their meal had passed mercifully calmly. Now Nagash was the boss again and had no second thoughts about showing it. So far, she had choked a tired builder within an inch of his life, shattered a pausing wood cutters nose and almost trodden on a little boy, simply because he was playing in her path.

"The second smoke house needs wood, uh...forewoman!" A young lad informed her after running over.

"Then get wood, you meagre little worm!" She shouted down at him, threateningly.

He might have been fourteen or sixteen, Nagash couldn't tell exactly, but he was of small stature and bony for any age.

"But the first smokery took all the chips the sawyers had!" He explained, naive as he was. "And the wood cutters say they won't give us any because they need the wood for the construction."

Her anger flared up again and she indulged in it, giving the lad a soft kick to knock him to the ground and putting her foot on his chest. Slowly leaning over him, Nagash felt his torso compress slowly under her weight. His scrawny little arms tried to claw and shove at her foot, but he was a human and a far too weak one at that.

"Don't you think you could have solved this problem on your own?" She asked him mockingly from above while applying more pressure. "Maybe go to the first smokery or the forest, instead of bothering me?"

"I went to the smokery." The boy croaked under her foot. "But they won't give me none either. And I tried to get the workers from our smoke house to join me and gather wood from the forest, but, argh..."

The pressure on his chest had reached a point that did not allow him to speak any more. Nagash wanted to simply shift her weight on top of him, squash him and be done with it. Thinking of what Dexter would do calmed her temper a little and made her decide that she really needed to hear what the boy had to say about the workers of the second smoke house.

"You can crush me," The boy coughed when she lifted some weight off of him, "but it won't get you no meat cured none!"

That was awfully accurate, Nagash had to admit. Killing him would not solve this problem.

"What of the second smoke house?" She inquired of him and gave him more room yet to breathe.

"They told me it was my duty to get it from the sawyers." The boy continued, breathing heavily. "They won't help me. Alone I'll never get enough wood there to get it working."

That was true as well. Her anger ebbing away, Nagash lifted her foot off the boy and even went so far as to pull him up by his tunic.

"Come." She told him and took off, walking energetically, the boy tailing her at a difficulty to keep up.

The smoke houses were on the edge of the village for fear of fire and the constant harassment by the smoke. The first and older one was on one end, the second and newer one on the other. When Nagash came near she saw the workers hastily getting up from resting and talking, quickly busying themselves, some with the most bizarre tasks. No smoke was rising from the chimney.

A woman burst forth from among them, running towards Nagash.

"We're out of wood, forewoman!" She called out with a voice that betrayed a lung ruined by smoke.

They came to a halt in front of each other and the boy caught up a few seconds later, cringing with a whooping cough.

"Is she in charge?" Nagash asked of him and he nodded while spitting a mouthful of slime from his throat.

"We can't cure any meat, we're out of wood." The woman explained again, frantically.

"Out of your mind is what you are, wasting my time!" Nagash threatened her from above. "Give me one good reason not to break your back for this insolence!"

"I..." The woman stammered with desperation creeping into her voice. "I tell everyone what to do. I have the most experience! Please!"

This was already getting boring.

"And did you tell this boy to bring wood?" Nagash pushed on, grinding her teeth against each other.

"No, no!" The woman shook her head. "We just ran out a moment ago, I swear!"

"Hey, where should we put this?" A bold man pushing a cart of raw meat called from the house.

"No, not here, we have no wood, bring it to the other!" The woman ordered hastily after turning around.

"What? Still?" The man asked in disbelief. "I just came from the other, they're overloaded, meat for two days, at least! Hey, forewoman, the other smokery is overloaded, do you hear?!"

When the women turned around, she saw Nagash's foot already hovering above her head. After giving her a last glance, Nagash brought it down with force. A few wet cracks and a sickening crunch from her skull could be heard, followed by the boy next to her, throwing up on the ground. Everyone around had stopped working for a second, but as the silence became too deafening, they picked it back up, with more pep this time. Only the workers of the smoke house remained where they were, staring in disbelief and horror.

Calmly, Nagash walked over to them, the crushed body squelching moistly under her first step.

"Put that meat here, human." She ordered the man with the cart.

"And scrap that over there into it." She added referring to the squashed, broken body of the woman who had defied her.

"You." Nagash went on pointing at the most able bodied man she could see. "You are in charge of this now. Do not disappoint me. The next time I will not make it so quick!"

He swallowed hard and nodded fearfully.

"Let's see if you are up to it." Nagash narrowed her eyes at the man. "How many should gather wood from the forest and how many should relieve the other smoke house?"

There was no mistake that he believed she would punish him if he answered wrong. Although it was true, Nagash did not really have any idea how many people exactly he had to send. Only if he said something absurd she'd sit on him while choosing and testing the next person in charge.

"You three, go and get meat!" He said after chewing a little on the task. "You, you and you!"

That included the boy that had followed Nagash here.

"The rest of us go get fire wood. Come on, move it!"

He gave Nagash a nervous glance from the side to see if she was satisfied before moving on. Nagash was satisfied indeed, but she also realized that she was getting more and more used to engaging with humans like that. And still she had gotten to kill one of them, which she called an all around success.

As she walked through the village, checking in, here and there, the humans picked up their pace. People ran instead of walking, hammers were beating faster, saws and axes were cutting more energetically.

Everything seemed very much in order and the villagers tried to solve their problems actively and on their own, as much as they could.