Chapter 2
Gold is for the mistress, silver for the maid, copper for the craftsman, cunning at his trade.
'Good.', Said King Aele, sitting in his hall, 'But iron, cold iron, is the master of them all.'
"Please, Sire, we cannot give them everything!" the old woman begged, kneeling in front of Lares. He had already heard that sentence a couple too often this morning so he lazily shoved his sword into her chest, twisted it once and let her body drop to the ground. The villagers held the eyes of their children shut.
They were collecting food for the giantesses just like Sir Ludwig had said but the villages held dearly to their supplies. It didn't matter much. A few dead people here and there and they happily gave it up. This was the last village they would plunder before sending the first small caravan to the giants. Sir Ludwig's plan was bold and Lares was still in doubt about whether it would work.
-
When she woke up, Janna was even hungrier yet. She couldn't tell what time it was which annoyed her a great deal because she hated getting up too late. She felt like it was about nine am but there was no way to be sure.
She and Laura had gone to bed at a good time, biologically speaking, but the day before had been really exhausting too so she still felt somewhat sleepy. The lack of food made it worse. Contrary to her, Laura was a long sleeper so Janna didn't bother to wake her up and silently went to get dressed.
Wearing the same panties and socks for two days deeply offended her sense of hygiene but she figured there was no other way for now. It would be unpractical to wash them every single day. Her brown leather boots were dirt stained too but she noticed that it wasn't quite as bad as the dirt on Laura's footwear. Boots were much more appropriate for this planet than sneakers.
Even though Janna's footwear sported a wooden block under the heel, she was able to move quite well on the soft top soil. When she slipped her foot inside she noticed something peculiar.
-
I awoke with a rumbling. The smell of feet was still around but something much heavier hung in the air. Leather. I noticed immediately that I was in a shoe, but a different one than before. Were the other was made from a strange but very sophisticated fabric, this one was made of leather. I could only imagine how many animals it might have taken to make it, or how large they might have been.
After all, these giants came out of nothing. Sleeping under the mountains for thousands of years, was the common tale. I wondered what, if anything, had woken them up.
What had woken me up became terrifyingly clear to me when what little light entered this shoe was blocked out by what could only be a giant foot. And so it was. I tried to get up but the foot was too quick. It shoved itself above me, pinning me to the sole. And then I felt it. The unstoppable weight that multiplied in split-seconds and would surely crush my puny little body into nothing at any moment.
-
When Janna slipped into her right boot she felt something under her foot. In her sleepy condition she dismissed it as a stone that she would remove as soon as it would bother her. Slowly putting her weight on it so not to hurt herself, she discovered that it was not a stone but something soft. For a moment she was happy that it wasn't a stone and just about to let her weight settle when her alarm bells rang.
She sat down on her butt so not to loose balance and carefully removed her shoe. Then she tilted it and let what ever was inside softly slide onto the hard floor. Sand, of this planet and of Earth, among with some of this planet's tree's leaves poured out before, inexplicably, a young naked man rolled onto the ground. He must have tried to flee from the table but discovered that he couldn't leave the ship and hide in her boot in the night, Janna thought.
-
When her weight lifted off me I felt strange. I couldn't explain how came I was such a lucky bastard all of a sudden. Picking myself up I mustered all my strength and again ran towards were the giantess's toes would be. Another wretched day spent in a shoe still seemed preferable over being turned into a smear.
I hadn't made my first step when my world shook and then, to my horror, tilted. Amidst sand and stones and other dirt I tumbled towards a grey surface.
When I landed there it took me a moment to catch my bearings. What turned out to be a giant boot was there, opening towards me, grey solid ground around before ending in walls of more grey, strange things, giant plateaus on single gigantic pillars made of steel...
A sudden warm breeze washing over me made me spin around and face her. The other giantess, the one I had evidently yet to suffer my share of torment from, was sitting over me. Well, technically, in front of me, but close enough to tower above me like a mountain and make me feel completely insignificant. Perhaps I wasn't such a lucky bastard after all.
I might have turned and run then or bow down and submit myself but I just stood there, utterly dumbstruck, staring at her unearthly proportions.
-
As lucky as she was to have saved the tiny guy, Janna found herself to be also quite angry with him.
"Who would be so stupid and irresponsible to hide in a giant shoe?!" She whispered, scolding him, "I could've crushed you, you little idiot!"
She felt like he needed a proper earful and with the least amount of care acceptable not to hurt him, she snatched his naked form off the floor, stood up and climbed out of the ship, to the ground. She moved around the ship and put the tiny guy by the lake.
Janna noticed that she was really disproportionately angry about this incident. Putting him on the ground in between her feet was probably overdoing it too. But had she accidentally crushed the young man, she would have been really sad and upset about it. The harangue wouldn't last long anyway.
"Do not ever hide in my shoes again!" She boomed from above. "It is dangerous and reckless and I swear next time maybe I wont notice you. And then I'll be sad. Do you want to make me sad? Don't run away when I'm talking to you!"
-
She was really mad at me for some reason. The slightly smaller giant girl from yesterday had done her gruesome deeds with an innocently curious and occasionally playful, evil smile on her face, yet this woman seemed to be really more on the angrier side. I wondered what I could have done to offend her. I also wondered if she wanted me to throw myself on the ground in submission.
Her voice was getting increasingly louder and I had to hold my ears to protect them. She was so mad that I was absolutely convinced she'd kill me. So I took off.
-
Janna stomped her foot on the ground next to him, paying no attention to the little tree that stood there, covering the tiny guy in bursting wood and creating a shock wave that sent him to the ground.
-
I saw her foot coming for me, impossibly large, impossibly quick, coming down not far from me on a little tree, smashing it to bits and driving most of it into the ground. I felt so helpless. I didn't know what she was mad at me for but I knew that I couldn't run away. The earth shook under her weight and I fell to the ground. I didn't bother to try and get up. Curling up into a ball I lied next to her feet, whimpering, awaiting the inevitable.
-
Suddenly, Janna felt sorry for him. She'd over done it. Completely. She realized she hadn't wanted to teach the tiny man a lesson, so much as releasing her anger over him almost making her kill him. He was lying next to her foot in fetal position covering his face in his miniature hands.
"I'm...sorry." She mumbled softly and knelt down to pick him up. "Are you hurt?"
She put him on the palm of her hand and briefly examined him but found him unharmed, if a little dirty.
-
Her tone had changed all of the sudden. It was soft now. There was almost something caring to it. I wasn't ready to tell whether she had forgiven me for whatever I did or was rather playing another game with me. She lifted me along with a good part of the ground I had been laying upon and carried me close to her gigantic face. What else was there to do than to curl up and hope she'd make it quick, I thought. She was just so impossibly huge.
-
Janna hated it that she couldn't communicate with the little guy. Incapable of asking him, she just decided that it was better for him to be clean, so, somewhat clumsily, she enclosed him in her fist, held him under water and swooshed him around a few times. It was enough to get the worst of the dirt off, plus he wasn't curled up in a ball any more.
-
Suddenly her fingers closed around me and she dunked me into the water. I know I always thought the worst of her so far but given my experiences with giants at that point I was absolutely right, so when she held me under water I seriously contemplated whether I'd prefer to be drowned or eaten. I was afraid she was going to eat me earlier but apparently I was too dirty. The violent way she thrashed me around in the water, that must have been the way a fish felt like after being caught by an otter.
When she took me out she addressed me again in her strange foreign tongue. It sounded as if she was talking to a pet puppy. With her free hand and her face she tried to tell me all kinds of things, most of which I didn't understand and whenever I said something she unintelligibly repeated my words like some kind of primitive. How ironic, that she would talk to me as if I was just some animal. I feared the giants' limited mental capacity might make them easier for Sir Ludwig to control.
He was Lord Ludwig in truth. Lord of these lands, ruling from his hold fast on a small hill. I do not know why he went with Sir instead, the title for knights with no large land possessions. Perhaps it was because he didn't command any knights under him. His men were all shady, Lares most of all. They meant to usurp the crown of Andergast now. I had no business or interest being anywhere near or even knowing about that matter. But then again, I had no business or interest to be in this giant monster's possession either.
Through our exchange, however, I became more and more convinced that the giantess wanted me no evil. This of course amazed me to the utmost, given what I had gone through the day before. At some point, she even put me back on the ground but eyed me suspiciously for a few seconds. I realized there was no point in running away from her, even less a point than running from men on horses.
Then I heard a large amount of air gurgling in her gut. She was hungry.
-
After trying to communicate with the tiny guy for a while, trying to apply Laura's tricks and techniques, Janna softly put him down next to her and went to wash herself in the lake. She had made some progress with the primitive alien but ran into some problems with theoretic concepts that he seemingly wasn't able to grasp at all. It was terribly annoying to do on an empty stomach.
She took off her T-Shirt and washed her face, arms and arm pits with water. She'd have to take a more thorough bath at some point in the coming days, but not today. Today she was hungry and still had to find out what to do with her tiny guest.
-
I still had no clue, what she was going to do with me. If she decided to keep me, there was nothing I could do about that. If she decided to let me go home, where was I going? I didn't have a home at that point. I wasn't going back to the village that had sold me out.
She didn't even pay me any attention while she washed herself in the lake. I noticed that her breasts were secured in a sturdy piece of clothing, much more sophisticated than even the kind rich woman folk of our kind wore. It was black and seemed to have a kind of pattern on it, embroidered with something like rambling flowers. It was beautiful and looked just fit for a goddess. Surely she couldn't have made it herself. I was curious. It seemed foolish to me, but since she didn't show me any hostility any longer I was all the more inclined to ask.
"Did you make that?" I inquired as loudly as I could and pointed at the piece of art that secured her enormous bosom. She turned to me, leaned in closer and gave me a bemused look.
"Did you make that?" I asked again and she looked at her chest.
"That?" She asked in our language and looked back at me. I nodded and she gave me a warm smile.
-
'Men, they're just the same, no matter where you go.' Janna thought and couldn't help but smile.
Under normal circumstances she would have been offended but although he was undoubtedly human-like and male, she didn't really consider the tiny mite next to her feet a man.
"No." She told him in the alien tongue but knew she couldn't possibly explain 'I bought it in a shopping mall'.
Since he seemed really fascinated with either her bra or her boobs, she decided that she was going to show him both to keep him occupied until she was ready to go. She found it amazing that he hadn't tried to run away yet. Not that she would let him, but he had plenty of opportunity to try.
-
Suddenly, her impossibly long arm slung around her torso and with a 'click' the ridiculously thick beams that held her titanic breasts loosened. Her boson dropped a little, weighed down by it's enormous mass. I couldn't believe that they were tits that I was looking at. Perfect, young, large, silky breasts, signs of youth and vitality. Only, these could easily flatten a house. I was terrified and amazed at the same time.
She put her 'breast-cups', for lack of a better word, down by me, careful not to get dirt on the inside and I saw that even though it was really nice from far away, the embroidery didn't really go into finer details, as if it had been made by giant hands. Up close, the work looked almost crude, lazy.
I estimated that the cups would be large enough to cover a hill about nine meters high when the wave of her feminine scent hit me. It was strong and everywhere, overwhelming me. It aroused me enough to make my head light and I stumbled backwards a few steps and fell. I couldn't think. I just laid there, paralysed, my erect member sticking out in between my thighs.
"Oh." I heard her gasp from above and she took it away. When the blood rushed back into my brains again I started to shiver. What in the name of the gods had I been thinking, she had every right in the world to smite me now. I tried to hide my erection and fight against it staring up at her in horror. She didn't look angry though, only concerned.
-
"Sorry." Janna mumbled awkwardly. Of course these tiny creatures would have a much better sense of smell, so he probably noticed she hadn't put on a fresh bra today. She was kind of surprised though, that it was worse enough to knock him out. She felt ashamed.
She also realized how scared he must have been to of all things choose her boot as a hiding spot for the night. It was time to bring the poor little creature home.
-
The fear of offending her helped to end my raging manhood's uproar rather quickly and I started to calm down. She had an almost apologetic look on her face as if she was sorry for arousing me that way. It was a really strange situation.
The giantess put on her shirt again and rose to stretch herself in the morning sun. Lying on my back beneath her, it was a once in a lifetime experience to see. I still had no idea what she was going to do with me. Smiting me didn't even seem to occur to her. I wondered why she bothered with me then. Maybe she was going to eat me, keep me or force me to do something my tiny hands could do better than hers. But she didn't show any evil intentions. If I tried to run now, maybe she'd even let me.
I got up and looked out for landmarks. Not only did I not have a home any more, I also had no idea where I was. Except for the colossal, strange-looking, grey temple I couldn't really see anything. I was torn in between trying to run and just waiting what would happen.
Then she bent down and offered me to climb onto her hand. That took a great toll on me. This gigantic, young behemoth offered me to climb onto her hand! She could've just snatched me off the ground like before, but no, she was going to let me decide. Or was she. I was still undecided when her friendly voice boomed from above.
"I take you to...", she began, evidently not knowing what the next word was in our language.
Pressing my luck I climbed into the palm of her hand. When she had lifted me up, closer to her face I offered: "Home?"
She gave me a quizzical look so I pointed at the temple and then at her, then to me and into the distance. Her face lit up.
"Home!" She exclaimed, clumsily happy, and smiled. My ears were ringing.
-
He could only have been one of the villagers so Janna confidently strode on the already beaten path in the forest towards it. She was happy to be able to help the poor little thing but the lack of food in her belly was really dampening. Once she'd brought him back to his people, solving the food question was next on her to-do list for today. If it could be solved, that was.
Occasionally Janna would point at something along the way to learn the aliens' words for it and also try to make conversation, although it was really awkward and difficult. Mostly, she would just repeat sentences he taught her and try to decipher the meaning by asking for specific words. Through this, she also learned the name of her tiny companion. Marvin, although he pronounced it 'Marrveen'. The similarity struck her again. Something was very odd about this planet.
-
"Good work, Lares." Sir Ludwig had said when the men had brought the first bunch of food from villages, farms and hunting cabins. It was late summer and there was summer harvest and early autumn harvest to be had, a great time for a ploy such as this, though Ludwig's particular lands were not rich and poor in agriculture.
His lands consisted of mostly forest, so he paid his tributes to King Aele in lumber, wild leather, game, wild fruit, mushrooms and the like. There were other fiefdoms in Andergast that produced mostly grains and meat from cattle. The mountain regions however were tightly under King Aele's personal control, bar some minor and occasionally illegal exceptions. The supply of iron for swords, lances and arrows, and stone to build castles and keeps were what the king built his might upon.
It was still to be seen if Ludwig could convince the giants to fight for him. He was willing to bleed his own lands dry and let his people starve. If he had all the food the giants had no other choice. He'd hide it in the forest if necessary. It was still quite a risky and headily plan but at least there was excitement now. Something to do. Sir Ludwig was tired of being in charge of a bunch of stupid trees, hunters, lumber workers and gatherers. He was surely born for something bigger. The arrival of the giants provided him with the opportunity he had been waiting for for years.
He led the first caravan off in direction of the village where the giantesses had first been sighted. Until the scouts provided him with a better destination, it was his best shot. Five carts filled with everything his subjects had had to offer, guarded by armed men from thieves, raiders and other lowlifes.
He had heard that the giantesses spoke a strange tongue, which might develop into a problem. On the other hand, if the Ludwig was the only noble able to communicate with the giants, it would greatly improve his chances of controlling them.
-
'Janna' was the giantess' name and she was going to take me 'home'. It didn't take me long to realize she was taking me back to my old village. I didn't want to go there. Maybe the people would even blame me for what happened and kill me. Another terrifying rumble in the her gargantuan gut gave me an idea. I'd have my revenge on Sir Ludwig for trying to have me killed and at the same time repaying the giantess for her kindness.
"I know where you can get food!" I yelled up at her face. Immediately her hungry eyes narrowed in on me and she stopped walking.
"Food?" She asked, probably the only word she had understood.
"Fruit and meat other things!" I explained. "Go there!"
And I pointed in the direction of Sir Ludwig's keep.
"You no want go home?" She asked, savagely butchering the already simple speech I had tried to teach her.
"I don't have a home." I replied and turned my gaze into the distance.
-
Poor little thing, Janna thought, but really nice of him to help her out with the food. She'd almost reached the village when he had told her to change course. After a while she spotted a small dirt road to her right and decided to walk on it to spare the forest some unnecessary destruction. Her feet were four times as wide as the road and pretty much tore it up with each step but Janna's feet didn't sink into the ground quite as deep when she walked on it.
The clouds in the sky had blocked out the sun a while ago and it started to drizzle. Something in this planet's atmosphere or magnetic field seemingly changed the cloud's behaviour though. It was a mackarel sky but the sheep-like clouds were already releasing their water. Even rain was small here, how very odd, Janna thought. Normal rain, like on earth, would probably have torn the soft topsoil and it's fragile plants apart, not to mention wash away whole civilizations in a storm.
-
The caravan was dragging itself slowly towards the village through the dense forest. Without these dirt roads, carts would never get through, Sir Ludwig thought and immediately grasped the necessity to maintain them for his plan to work. The peasants that steered the carts didn't have any idea were they were going.
"Stop burying your sister under the apples!" An old, withered farmer on a cart shouted at his son.
The two only laughed and continued with their game.
After the road had made a turn they saw her. A massive young woman standing in the distance, standing on the very road they were on, gazing into the sky. She was just huge. Sir Ludwig realized immediately that five carts weren't even remotely enough to feed her. Still he had the caravan proceed, the soldiers forcing the peasants to press on.
The one hundred meter tall giantess struck fear in every single one of their hearts. The farmer's boy pressed tightly against his father and the horses and oxen needed some whipping to be convinced to move on too.
-
When Janna turned back to the road to move on she saw something slowly move towards her in the distance. A track of carts, dragged by oxen and people, most on the ground and some on horses. Curious, She quickened her pace and it didn't take long to get to them.
-
With terrifying speed the giantess strode towards them. A few peasants and even some soldiers lost their nerve and ran into the wilderness.
"Steady, men!" Sir Ludwig commanded.
About 50 meters in front of the caravan she stopped, happily ogling them from above.
"That, for me?" She asked before Sir Ludwig saw a naked man stand over the edge of the giant palm and nod. Even though it was far away, He recognized the young man's face. That bastard.
Sir Ludwig was going to hang that wretched scout as soon as possible for failing to kill the hunter and putting his plans in jeopardy. On the other hand, meeting the giantess was the best thing Ludwig could hope for. He just couldn't decipher the hunter's role yet.
"Oh, mighty giantess!" He hollerred. "This food is for you! It is a gift from me, Sir Ludwig, to your person! If it is not enough so rest assured, we will bring you more!"
She gave him a confused look and asked again: "That for me?"
Sir Ludwig sighed. So the giants did speak their language, only not very well.
"Yes!", he hollerred, trying to simplify the message and employing arms and hands to be understood. "From me, to you!"
"Thank you!" The giant girl beamed and took another casual step towards the caravan. When she crouched and reached for the first cart, the one with the apples and pears, the peasants and soldiers around fled away in panic.
"No!" Sir Ludwig heard the man who had been driving the cart scream next to him in terror. With the look of helpless devastation in his eyes he stared at the cart that was effortlessly lifted along with the oxen towards a giant beautiful face. Greedily the giantess poured the contents of the cart into her mouth.
-
In the matchbox-sized cart there were apples, pears and something else that tasted almost like nothing but Janna was way too hungry to care. She shoved the lump onto her molars and bit down. It tasted salty after she crushed it in between her teeth, meaty, bloody, and incredibly good.
Then there was no holding back any more. She put the cart and the animal back down were it had been before and reached for the next cart barely giving the tiny people time to jump off before she poured it's contents into her mouth.
She could tell that the tinies had neatly divided her food into fruit, meat and bread items but she simply reached for cart after cart and poured it all in before she briefly chewed and swallowed. It wasn't enough.
-
The oxen ran around on the ground, dragging their now empty carts and getting stuck in ditches and mud. People fell on top of each other as they started running away. They all realized that their pathetic five carts of food had more awoken the giantess' hunger than quenched it and none of them knew what would happen next.
"Please, eat the oxen!" Sir Ludwig yelled from his distressed horse while trying to maintain order in his ranks. The more of his people fled the weaker the moral of the remaining people became. The giantess shrugged her shoulders, grabbed an oxen and broke it lose from it's cart. Then she put the animal into her mouth and chewed. Frantically, he looked for other sources of food for her.
-
Eating the food from the carts had made Janna even hungrier. She knew that in about half an hour a feeling of saturation would spread in her stomach no matter how much or little she'd eat. But she wasn't going to wait that long. When the tiny man on the horse who had been talking to her offered her the oxen, she just took them, not even bothering to get them clean.
The frightened animals panicked in her mouth but were no match for her tongue that shoved them onto her molars before she ground them into paste. They didn't even taste that bad.
-
As soon as she had spotted the food, the giantess didn't pay me any attention any more. After she had devoured the stuff from the wagons she went to eat the oxen. Her mouth was so big that fifteen of them would have easily fit inside, yet there were only five. The animals mooed in terror before her maw ground their bones into a pulp. Should one day she decide to eat us, there would be nothing we could do.
"Eat the horses too!" I heard Sir Ludwig yell frantically in the distance. He had gotten off his frantic steed and ordered his two remaining riders down from their horses as well. Janna didn't think long before she snatched them all three, shoved them into her mouth and pulverized them, saddle, bridle and all. Now there were only we people left.
"Catch the peasants!" Sir Ludwig commanded his remaining soldiers "She can eat them too!"
-
Janna looked around for more, involuntarily paying the tiny people a little more attention. Most of them had ran away, no doubt terrified by her feeding frenzy. Some carts were broken, others overturned as she had carelessly discarded them. All animals were gone, either on the run or in her digestive system. She felt a little sorry for having eaten the poor things alive, but she had been so mind-numbingly hungry.
"You can eat them too!" The tiny man who apparently was in charge around here and had offered her all this food said pointing at three poor looking people who were being held by soldiers. An older man, a woman and a boy.
"No." Janna shook her head, blushing. "I don't eat people."
She found this display of inhumanity rather disturbing, but then again, the dark ages were called the dark ages for a reason. One of the aliens offered to her seemed to be offended by this.
"You ate my daughter!" He exclaimed in tears. "She was hiding on the apple cart!"
He fell to his knees and cried bitterly, the boy dropping down by his side, hugging him. The soldiers let them be, chewing on their lips with crooked teeth and haunted looks on their faces.
"Daughter, cart, hiding?" Janna repeated perplexed and Marvin jumped to her aid translating it into easier language.
"His girl. You ate his girl. She was under the apples."
Janna swollowed hard and tried to remember. Yes. The salty lump that had been among the apples. The that had been so tasty. She had thought it was a sack of meat items or something. She looked at the sobbing man in terror. She had eaten this poor man's daughter. Chewed her up as if she was a snack, her indistinguishable remains now goo among the other stuff she had devoured.
She felt incredibly sorry, but she wasn't able to articulate it in any way. Tears welled up in her eyes and she blinked them away. It was all so horrible all of a sudden.
-
The mighty giantess was horror struck over what she had done. Tears, as large as my head, ran down her cheeks and fell to the ground. It was fascinating to see, fascinating to see that she cared. I wanted desperately to help her.
"How can I make good?" She asked through her tears.
"Put me down, please." I told her and she lowered me to the ground.
"She is very sorry, as you can see." I told the farmer who seemed to be rather irritated about the fact that I was being nakedly carried around by a one hundred meter tall woman. "Is there anything the giantess can do for you?"
Suddenly, Sir Ludwig jumped to his side and whispered in his ear. The farmer nodded and before I could intervene he pointed at me and said: "Kill him!"
I had made a mistake but I was just too dumbstruck at the way I was being sold out. Sir Ludwig probably promised the man a few coppers in exchange for his lies. Having survived being pissed and trodden upon, this couldn't possibly be my end. And for what, I asked myself. I was a hunter. I had nothing to do with any of this.
"He is a bad man!" Our liege lord proclaimed loudly. "He has killed many women and children! He is a rapist and a murderer! He deserves to die!"
Rapist, murderer, she couldn't possibly know those terms. Bad man, she understood though, and the other words sounded bad enough on their own merit even without their dreadful meaning. Ludwig's mummery was impressive and did the rest of it. Giant eyes looked at me with grave disappointment.
“No, it's a lie! A lie!” I shouted at her, blind with rage. “He wants to use you! He means to usurp the crown of King Aele, he is a traitor, he – argh!”
The butt of a spear hit me hard in back. I looked up. I could read in her face that she didn't believe me. She was angry again.
-
Sir Ludwig observed contently as the giantess flared her nostrils. If she had understood the hunter's pleas, she didn't believe them. He had used far too many words in any case while Ludwig had pointed at him before at man woman and child alike and drawing an invisible blade across his own throat.
"He is evil, bad!" He screamed desperately once again and the giantess made her move. She plucked the naked man off the floor and lifted him high into the air as if he weighed nothing.
She craned her neck and held him dangling up side down above her face, eyeing him with the look of a betrayed woman. Not wasting another word on him she opened her mouth, showing him where he would go, before almost gently lowering him inside. She lowered her head so we could all see his desperate struggles in her gaping maw. It was huge, easily large enough to devour twenty men at once.
With a terrified look on his face the hunter tried to crawl towards her lips but right before he reached her front teeth her mighty jaws shut. She swallowed noisily before opening her mouth again, revealing the emptiness inside.
Sir Ludwig smiled. It had worked out well.
-
Janna felt betrayed. She had saved Marvin and offered to carry him home, almost befriended him only to learn that he was a man wanted for murder. She hadn't quite understood what else Marvin had done, but it had to be something evil for this innocent farmer to of all things wish for Marvin's death. Being digested alive was probably a fit punishment for his crimes. She couldn't stand evil, nor being used.
Occasionally she thought to feel his faint struggles in her belly, barely notable, but that may as well have been her stomach doing it's work on him.
The tiny man in charge ordered the remaining people, except for three soldiers to return to where ever they'd come from. Through her exchanges with him she learned more than she ever could have with Marvin. The man in command, who revealed himself as Sir Ludwig, spoke very patiently with her. It didn't take long until she was convinced of his good intentions. He was very intelligent and able to teach Janna new words quickly.
Apparently, these lands were called Andergast, a kingdom among many with many problems that plagued it's people. Although he was careful not to show it directly, Janna felt that Sir Ludwig saw most of this Kingdom's problems with the higher leadership, meaning the king or whoever else when pointing above his head and calling them bad and evil. There seemed to be an immoral, exploitative bunch of people out there, standing in the way of his vision of a better world. King Aele seemed to be one of them.
About one and a half days march, for her, to the west and Janna would reach the kingdom of Nostria and beyond that, the Lands of the Thorwalsh, a people of raiders and fishermen. The north was mostly empty steppe but to the south and beyond the eastern mountains was a much larger and richer kingdom called the Garethian Empire.
"Tomorrow morning we will bring more food." Sir Ludwig also promised her. "Just come to my keep at the end of this road, we shall be waiting for you, righteous giantess."
'Righteous giantess', how he commonly referred to Janna had a nice ring to it. In return, Janna obediently called him 'my lord.'
Of course, given the fact that Janna had to learn most of the more complex words first, they were speaking for several hours. Janna had sat down on the cart track and lifted Sir Ludwig closer to her ears so that he wouldn't have to shout all the time. Given that the food question was solved for now, she figured that it was time well spent. It was all terribly exciting too.