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The Thorwalsh made it easy for Janna, most of the time. The substantial ones, the ones she had to get to incapacitate their settlements, meaning the strongest, bravest, most capable specimen, usually would not flee. The Horasians were very adapt at making the powers of wind and water work for them. Mills could grind corn, saw or break wood, break ore and even smith by lifting extremely large hammers before letting them fall again. There were many applications for the forces of nature but sometimes an overworked labourer during a minute of inattention could be dragged into the machine and be at it's mercy ere it could be stopped, often ending up mangled and crushed, disfigured grotesquely.


That was the way that Furio had come to think of Janna.


Only Janna was not a machine to bring forth something positive, if truth be told. Death was her purpose, but any human unfortunate enough to get into her gears would be crushed equally without mercy. More than that though, Janna visibly enjoyed what she was doing, whether it be crushing people to death, eating them or torturing them in what ever way she might think of. She had made reasonably short work of villagers and stray farmers in her path, but never without having her fun.


At Brattasö she had stuffed Furio and Rondria into a pocket and then proceeded to touch herself in an immoral way. Furio may not have been privy to any such spectacle before but the sounds and aromas left little doubt in his mind. Trollshovel had been smaller and she had given no hint of interest in it's presumably ancient history. Nothing to do with a shovel at all, 'Troll's Hovel' featured a few fascinating circular formations of stones that may in fact have been giant-dwellings at some point. Of course, there was no time and little use for further investigation.


On the Thorwallers' side it was rather unspectacular. A little agriculture, livestock, a few cloth dyers and that was it. The waste products of the dyers had coloured a nearby stream yellow and purple, something that seemed to anger Janna quite a bit. One would never have suspected so much druid talk from someone who crushed trees with almost every step. She made the attempt of having the villagers go and drink the filthy water but the proud people of Trollshovel rather picked up axes, spears and shields instead. Thankfully, she only crushed them and went on that time.


On the coast, there were two villages, Merske in the south, Serske in the north. To get to Merske, Janna had to swing south-west by west, actually moving away from their final destination for a time. It was past mid day, but at Janna's speed they would make it easily so they decided to add it to the list of villages to wipe out. On the way there she crushed two families of farmers under her feet and stopped for a third one, travelling on the coastal road with a wagon of goods.


The ground under Furio's feet felt queer when he was let down, as if his mind had forgotten what solid, steady ground felt like. Janna wanted her hands free. She lifted her tunic and stuffed the travellers she had caught in between her gargantuan teats. They were truly monstrous, though firm and young, and would have made any normal sized maid attractive to most men's eyes. She giggled and pressed them together obscenely. Shortly after, Furio could see a trickle of blood run down towards her navel from in between them. She had never said a word and it was over quickly.


That was so strange. One moment, Janna was a viciously efficient war machine, the next she could be a toddler on an ant hill. Well, not a toddler, she was very grown up, though not quite as much as would be considered optimal for a creature so powerful. He had seen and thought it before, but it didn't lack in strangeness any time it happened.


Rondria had tried to poke holes into Janna about her background. The story was too strange and unreal to be believed. None of it made sense. Every answer Janna gave raised three more questions, and the giantess was struggling hard, coming to the edge of her mental capacity at explaining away ever new contradictions. Worse yet, she did not seem to very well understand that world she supposedly came from herself.


“So, these machines that hold and display knowledge and information, as you say.” Rondria would start. “Are they magic?”


“No, not magic.” Janna would reply awkwardly. “Just the laws of nature and mathematics carefully put to work.”


“How?”


“It is...it is the same stuff as lightning. Energy. And the energy triggers things and then the machine can almost think on it's own, all by maths, using zero and one.”


Was it powered by a thunderstorm? No. The lighting came out of the wall through a metal cable and was produced somewhere else. How was it produced? Well, there were different ways, one was to use wind, like a mill, another way was sunlight. How could sunlight or wind by turned into lighting, well, Janna did not know. Neither did she know how to put cable into a stone wall, or what such a machine was made of or how it was made or how exactly it worked.


Rondria was getting more and more vexed by the inconsistencies but in the end, they both called off their interaction, both their heads smoking.


Furio had only listened with a half ear. The swaying of Janna's hand was getting to him. She was being less careful to keep her hand steady and complained of a tiring arm after holding it up for so long. Sea air was all around them. It had been long before Merske came in sight and Janna had already taken her few moments to marvel at the sheer endless blue.


Up here, the sea was very blue. Furio did not know where exactly it turned greenish in the south. He only knew that it did. The sea did not concern him however, not with the spectacle they got to see at Merske.


The Thorwalsh were really making it easy for Janna.


Three common giantesses were on the ground, thick ropes spanned across their naked bodies, secured with nothing less than Thorwalsh longboats for weight. The smaller ships of the Thorwalers were relatively light and could be carried across land by the crew for astonishing distances. The people's large frames obviously helped them with that, but it was something no other navy Furio was aware of could do. The Horasian fleet must have been fooled a hundred times by Thorwalsh raiders vanishing on land, crew and ships both, only to put back to sea somewhere else afterwards.


The low weight of the ships of course meant that the incredibly strong giantesses might have been able to lift them and get away, but they only served to hold them down long enough for the numerous armed guard posted all around them to strike a blow. How the people of Merske had brought them down in the first place, Furio did not know.


Janna's appearance clearly took them aback though. They had been arming up anyway, that much was clear, even from afar, perhaps on account of the smaller giantesses.


But when they spied Janna, someone shouted: “She's come to us! Form up! Shieldwall!”


Thorwalsh might at war was a force to be reckoned with, but their tactics were clearly ages old. It was not the first time that day they saw them employ that entirely hopeless formation against Janna too. What was startling was the fact that they seemed to have been expecting her. Surely, no one could have travelled ahead of them to warn the village.


“They think I'm Laura.” Janna chuckled softly above Furio and Rondria's heads. “I guess they expected her to go here next, or maybe they wanted to attack her. Hey, that means there's a good chance she is still at Thorwal, right?”


Her eyes were still transfixed on the three smaller giantesses and Furio sensed nothing good of it.


“It may!” He agreed reluctantly, shouting over the wind.


Janna edged closer curiously. Arrows greeted her but fell hopelessly short. The Thorwalsh were large people with strong backs and long muscular arms who might have been uniquely fitted to the Nostrian longbow which even out-ranged the composite bows of the Novadis and Tulamids. Alas, they used short bows mostly, because it was the one most handy aboard a ship, especially a small one. Some had war bows of incredibly strong wood, requiring a bear of a man to draw. But overall, Thorwalsh held ranged weapons in little esteem, not for reasons of Rondrian virtues and honour as knights often did, but pure love of hand to hand combat.


“You will die for what you did to Thorwal!” Someone shouted from the village. The sentence only arrived in bits and pieces, half carried off by the wind.


Janna came into arrow range and Furio and Rondria took cover behind the fingers of the giant hand they sat in.


“Cut the giant bitches' throats!” Someone else screamed. “We don't need them any more now?!”


“What would you need them for?” Janna asked amused. She was utterly impervious to the arrows but closed in quicker, well intent on capturing the ogres alive.


It was understandable. To her, the terrifying creatures were mere dolls. Furio recalled battling them in the forest. Janna would never know what that felt like.


“Your last chance, monsters!” The young ogresses were addressed. “Fight on our side, or die!”


The first one had fuzzy bright blond hair and a look on her face that might have been able to turn milk sour. She hissed something in that archaic, brutal tongue Furio had heard before. The one next to her had black hair and started to fight against her constraints while the third, auburn-haired, was eyeing Janna in frozen terror. They all looked young. Perhaps it had been their inexperience that had gotten them trapped. They had only sustained minor injuries thus far though, but judging by the demeanour of their guards, this was about to change.


The black-haired was making an effort to rise roaring while a huge man with a savage, double-sided war axe was already on her. Iron-tipped spears were moving, ready to strike.


“Don't you!” Janna shouted and stomped forward so hard that Rondria and Furio fell on their backs.


When he got up to see again, he saw that the guards had shied away but the man with the axe had struck, burying it in the ogress' skull. It was not enough to kill her instantly, but Furio knew that she would not get back up from this. When he looked up he saw Janna's nostrils flaring.


A shout rang out from the village: “She wants to save them! Kill them! Kill them now!”


The blonde and the auburn-haired seized the opportunity and fought to free themselves of the thick ropes. Bows were drawn, aiming at the two but Janna took another mighty stomp towards the village, shaking the earth, frightening the bowmen into submission. The giantesses ran in the next instant, right towards Janna.


And just like that, they were allied, at least for the moment.


Janna even asked: “Are you okay?” But she only received confused glances, half thankful, half terrified.


“Could you watch them while I flatten the village?” She asked suddenly then.


An ice cold shower ran down Furio's spine when he understood that it was directed at Rondria and him. Thankfully, the blond giantess replied for him, tugging at Janna's leg and saying something utterly incomprehensible.


“Hmm.” Janna made at her. “You don't understand me, do you?”


She got that same barbaric gibberish in reply.


“Phew, that complicates things.”


An arrow buzzed by Furio's ear and he got back down in cover. Above, Janna seemed to be thinking hard but inconclusively. Furio understood. She did not want to leave the ogresses unattended for fear of them slipping away.


“What are you waiting for?! Charge! For Swafnir!”


Then Furio's world went black all of a sudden and an instant later, he found himself in the familiar fabric of Janna's gargantuan pants. The giant, girly killing machine had decided what she would do. Sure enough, the two unhurt giantesses grunted their protest a moment after as they were being picked up, one in each hand.


With the pickle solved, Janna began moving and it wasn't long before they heard the sound of her boots impacting on groups of people. Somehow, not seeing the corresponding action made them worse. The screaming was something Furio had gotten used to but the wet squelching sounds of bodies mashed beyond recognition was something else.


“No, no, no, I'm not done with you yet.” They could hear her giggle, then someone begging and more people being crushed.


Furio had gotten to terms with he grimness of his mission before, but Janna was not making it easy for him to keep it that way. But what was he to do? He could bewitch her with Bannbaladin for so long and maybe take her somewhere else. She'd only start to kill people there then, where ever it was. More over, he could not simply disobey the orders he had been given. He was still to get a grip on the wretched druid and still to lure out Olaf, when ever he would arrive, and kill him.


The Thorwalsh were vile, murderous people. He would do well to remember that.


“Hello?” Rondria called out in the dark, her voice thick with wine.


She was somewhere in front of him.


“I'm here!” He called back.


“No, not you!” She sounded annoyed. “Hello?!”


Furio was perplexed. There was no one else there.


“Help me!” A weak, distant voice called, somewhat muffled. It had the accent of a Horasian commoner.


“Poor bastards.” Furio muttered, remembering. He thought of Rondria's womanhood, how nice it had felt, wet and warm. But be a bug and spend the day there, that only sounded good in a jape. And for what, he asked himself, just a few pleasurable twitches every now and then. It was the power, he decided, it must have been. He was lucky to be in Janna's pocket rather than her underpants.


“How are you holding up?” Rondria's voice was not compassionate but rather more amused.


He had seen her drink heavy on her wineskin while they travelled. It was not uncommon for travellers. He should not have let her get drunk though.


“Get me out! Please!” The voice whined.


“Squirm!” Rondria replied laughing. “She'll like that!”


All voices were drowned out at once before another word could be said. Janna was trampling houses.


“Can you image.” Rondria asked Furio in between stomps. “Having so much power?”


“You're drunk.” He dispraised her, ignoring the question.


“Oh, did you want to hide? Too bad!” Janna's voice rang loudly.


Someone screamed and died a moment after.


“You know where the coachmen are?” Rondria was edging closer. She found his hand and guided it between her legs. “Let me show you.”


She was as wet as the evening before but he withdrew in disgust, resisting the urge to strike her. It wasn't that he didn't want her, not the impropriety of it either, but he simply couldn't think of making love now, not with people screaming and dying below, not with fellow Horasians nudged in between Janna's nether lips a few metres onward.


“Is there a spell for shrinking people, master?” Rondria asked after leaning back, disentangling herself from him.


“No.” He replied coldly. “And there is none to grow you as tall as her either.”


“I...” She made. “Forgive me master, I, uh, I have had too much...”


“Yes.” He interrupted. “See that it does not happen again.”


The silence that followed was so awkward and sorry that it was a relief when Janna's fingers came to drag them out of there. Merske was shattered ruins and gargantuan footprints. What was left of it's people was lying around, reduced to minced meat, skin flat as paper or grotesquely mangled heaps of flesh.


The young giantesses ogled at the destruction in awe and fear. They must have been the sisters the Jarl of Brattasö had spoken of, he reflected, probably come out of Andergast, deserting their like. As Janna lowered Rondria and him before them, he judged them between ten and eleven metres tall. Now it was all he could do to sit and wait what Janna had in mind for them.


The auburn-haired one seemed to remember something suddenly, spun and made a run towards her black-haired comrade. Janna's hand shot out to stop her, but halted when she saw that the ogress was not trying to run away. Instead the immensely larger giantess ushered the blond one after the other and followed herself.


“Furio.” She commanded in passing. “Is there a spell you can use to help me talk to them?”


He tried not to mind the pools of viscera and squelched body matter he had to pass in order to get over there. Rondria was gagging. The stench was overwhelming indeed.


“Not that I'm aware of!” He shouted after her, choking. “The druids may-”


Her sigh rolled over his voice like a boulder. She did not want to be lectured now. The auburn-haired giantess cradled the injured one's bleeding head. Icy blue eyes looked faintly into no direction in particular. She was passing, and the one that cradled her started to weep. That was a strange sight to behold if Furio ever saw one. She had green eyes, like emeralds were the blonde hat white ones. But while their hair and eyes did not match even in the slightest, they features did show some resemblance. Different fathers, Furio deduced. It made sense considering how giants lived and all.


“Can you heal the black-haired one with your magic?” Janna inquired next.


Balsam Salabunde would work, he had no doubt about that, but it was a grievous wound that would cost a lot of energy to close. Rondria was moving to oblige even while he was still thinking, questioning what Janna wanted to do with the ogresses.


The smaller giantess grunted and shoved the acolyte away. The girl tumbled and smashed into the ground, wincing.


“No, it's okay.” Janna soothed, separating the grieving giantess from the dying.


“Vir fleen!” The blonde giantess hissed but Furio had no idea what it meant.


Janna clumsily helped Rondria to her feet and Furio almost feared she'd crush her between those tree-trunk-sized fingers. It was fine though, and Rondria did the deed, looking up into the sky and sending a prayer to Peraine to enhance the healing.


When the black-haired one rose, the gash in her head closed, the other two gasped in stupid disbelief. That had been a mistake though, healing her. Furio remembered the look on that giantess' face as she lay bound to the ground. It was the same look she had now.


“Get away!” He shouted too late.


The beast saw Rondria, icy blue eyes full of hate, and her hands came, lifted her up to that terrifying height and squeezed. Rondria winced once more before the air was crushed out of her. Long, pale fingers wrapped around that young, bold, beautiful head and turned. Rondria's slender spine snapped like a twig. Her head was twisted off a moment later.


Even Janna gave a cry of sorrow. Furio fell to his knees as the limp, bloody torso hit the ground. How tiny, frail and insignificant they were. In between the three massive ogresses and the mountain that was Janna he felt like a worm. Emptiness filled his head.


The black-haired murderer roared to her brethren. The auburn-haired one shouted something but the two others were coming for Janna at once. Furio was still kneeling there, in between them. They walked right over him, one huge foot, more than two thirds as long as he was tall landing right beside where he knealt. He didn't care. They could crush him and do him a kindness. But it seemed as though they had utterly overlooked him.


That was surprise enough to make him re-evaluate the situation. Fear for his own life gripped his heart now and he jumped to his feet and spun. Janna's eyes were wet with honest tears. The attack had taken her at her most vulnerable. Even though it had the appearance of two trees attacking a mountain, it did not seem as ineffective has one might otherwise expect.


With Janna passive, the black-haired giantess had climbed her knees and calves and was trying to claw at her face. The reach of her arms was too short with a giant, huge, heavy, crushing tit in the way though. The blonde was clawing and biting at Janna's leg instead but that did not appear to bother her at all. Her face was still in mourning, transfixed on the dead little girl.


When the black one bit her nipple through her shirt, Janna yelped and was thankfully yanked back into the present. All of a sudden the attackers were mere dolls again, as her hands gripped them hard and yanked them away.


Furio only remembered the third giantess as she gripped him. Strong fingers pressed the air from his lungs, threatening to crunch his ribs with ease. His legs kicked in search for ground, but her angry, stern face came into view a moment after and he knew he was far too high up. She was throttling him in her grasp.


He wasn't so much a mighty mage as a pitiful bug then. Spell casting never so much as occurred to his breath-starved mind.


“Let him go!” He heard Janna shout so loud it made his ears ring. Through blurred vision he could see the mountain of her, shifting threateningly.


His captor rasped some reply. She was gesturing wildly even while he was in her claws, making his head spin only the more of it.


“Let him go, or I will crush your friends!”


Yelps of pain were heard and the grip around his chest tightened once more. He had not believed it possible, but it was. Blood rushed his head with insurmountable pressure. His eyes failed him first, then all the other senses went. Like through a long stone tunnel, he could hear weeping. Then all was darkness.


“Furio!”


The voice was crisp, agitated, short.


“Furio!” Janna shouted so loud the cold ground was vibrating.


Fresh air filled his lungs, cold and stinging like knives. But he was alive, he realized a moment after.


“Furio!”


His ears were ringing again, or still, he could not tell. He opened his eyes.


'That is my name, Furio Montane, I am a little worm, all twitch and wreathe and squirm.'


That was one of the weirdest thoughts he ever had, he reflected queerly. His stomach seemed to be upside down and he felt the need to sit upright.


“I need you to heal this one again.” Janna commanded with a cold voice. “Looks like I crushed her torso. She's dying, that one too.”


Furio turned his head, blinking against the light.


The black-haired giantess that had murdered his beloved acolyte was on her back, face dark purple, twitching. Her torso was compressed, a great deal flatter than made any sense. Behind her, he saw the auburn one with a similarly crushed pelvis. Blood was running from her mouth and nose.


Janna was towering over all of them while she gave the blond ogress her share of the treatment. She bent back a tiny arm until the shoulder popped out of it's socket, making her scream. Then Janna crushed her victim against the ground with her hand before moving over to sit. Furio could hear bones snap when Janna's butt cheeks settled.


Without another though he leapt to his feet and scurried over to do Janna's bidding. He placed his hands on the black-haired monster's torso and healed the swollen, purple shattered wrist as well when he saw it. Like the little worm he was, he was away before his patient was back to her senses. Then he snatched the auburn one from Boron's arms, or where ever these creatures went when they died.


Janna grabbed them both by the leg and dragged them closer to her, making sure they woke up to see their friend being ground beneath her rump.


The titaness' breath was laboured and growing more so quickly. She had leaned forward to feel the sensation of the ogress beneath her crotch. Furio thought and felt nothing by watching the obscene spectacle but Janna soon moaned, bit her lip and ground harder.


He saw that Rondria's headless body had been crushed flat. Janna must have stepped or sat on her, or something like that had transpired. It didn't matter, she was dead anyway. He found her head and picked it up. The giantess' fingers and broken her nose with their might and left it where it didn't belong. He pulled it back in place and numbly stared into his young beloveds eyes.


“Ahhhh!” Janna's legs shuddered and she lifted herself off her victim.


There was a considerable dent in the ground where she had done it, and the blond ogress was in particularly bad shape.


“Save her.” Janna breathed to him.


He did not know if there was anything to be saved, but he dropped Rondria's head instantly, getting to work. The giantess' jaw was broken and crushed upwards and to the side. Teeth were missing, some stuck in her mouth and others fallen to the ground. They were as large as vases or vats but Furio retrieved them where he could and pushed them back into the gums, even leaning into the monsters mouth as he had to.


The foul breath coming out of there, along with the choppy moaning told him that the patient was still alive. He yanked the broken jaw back in place and healed it, then tending to the crushed and broken rips. Janna had also smashed the pelvis, spine and one leg on this one. It cost him all the energy he had left, but he obeyed without question before hurrying away again.


'I'm too small for this game of giants.' He knew in his mind.


He cowered by the side, waiting to be called upon, his only attention on not being inadvertently crushed by some careless movement. The three giant dolls huddled together after the blonde had found her shaky feet.


“Should I go again, what do you think?” Janna asked him through heavy breaths. She had her hand down her pants and it came back moist, carrying the remains of the Horasian coachmen. The first, there was no telling how many they were, had been ground to pink, wet mush. The ones after that were wet to the bone as well but seemed to have drowned or been smothered to death.


“Ah, I wish I could change.” She added reflecting, her juices in between her fingers drawing a slimy line.


“Do as you wish.” He replied submissively. “But know that my powers are depleted. I have a potion to regain some of it, though I fear it might not be sufficient.”


“No, that's alright.” She waved off. He understood that it had been a jape and chuckled dutifully.


His head was pounding in chorus with every beat of his heart. It felt as though someone was driving gouges into his temples. He lifted his hand to his eyes and found it shaking.


“Are you alright?” Janna asked concerned.


It was a queer question. He was her subject. Her worm. The dirt beneath her feet.


“Oh no.” Her fingers found Rondria's body and peeled it off the ground. “Furio, I'm so sorry. I never knew they would do that. I didn't think...”


He bowed his head, overwhelmed: “You must not think, if you do not wish to.” He said. “It was my fault, I should have gone and done the deed myself and never hesitate and question you.”


“No!” She said sharply. “It was not your fault!”


“As you command.” He replied, obliging.


Janna sighed and gave him another troubled look. Furio was distraught that she would be displeased with him but she spoke again before he could seek her forgiveness.


“We should bury her.” She declared, going to pick up Rondria's head but thinking better of it.


“Err, I am not a servant of Boron, but I may perform the rites, if it please you.”


And so they did. Janna shovelled a deep grave with her hand and Furio bedded his former acolyte at the bottom, her severed head placed on her crushed and broken chest. Inexplicably, a tear rolled down his cheek as he regarded her. Something told him that he should break down and cry, mourn, be angry. On the other hand, it felt as though he had never known the girl. He should not act selfish, he told himself, that would be displeasing to Janna.


His giant master lifted him from the grave, covered it with earth and set one of the countless boulders on top of it as a tombstone.


“I wish there was more we could do for her.” She said sadly. “Inscribe the stone at least. Is there something I can do for you though?”


It was very kind and earnest. He turned to face her, crouched, then lied down.


“If you would place your foot on top of me and crush me, that would be a kindness.”


He didn't know what made him say it. He should never demand something from her.


“No.” She replied soothingly. “I still need you to read the map.”

Chapter End Notes:

 

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