Lord Perainhold Tront was a bold, stout man, strong armed and clad in ring mail. His head was still sweating from the ride and the warmth of the braziers in the command tent while General Scalia patiently listened to his tantric words, hands folded, elbows on the table and his face unreadable as ever. The lord's companions and retainers were a score of knights and lords in similar armour, swords at their hips and sour faces all.

“This is not acceptable!” Tront roared for the hundredth time. “His majesty bids me tell you that we need help now! You started this madness, now you make it right again!”

“Stocks can be replenished, villages and farms rebuilt, as can Salza, I assure you of that, Sir!” Hot-headed Major Marillio blurted in response.

Lee emptied his cup and refilled it from the stoneclay bottle on the table.

“But Hjalmar Boyfucker will not die on his own and neither will his Thorwalsh or his Nostrian men!” The Nostrian lord rebutted strongly.

Major Emilio Rieu picked at his thin moustache: “Why are these Nostrians fighting against you in the first place, Sir? Do they not owe allegiance to the crown?”

Tront cleared his throat noisily and spat onto the carpet at the perceived slight.

“Er, Kendrar and it's surrounding villages are full of Nostrians.” The mage, Master Hypperio spoke up. “More than twenty years ago, the city and it's lands belonged to Nostria before Hetman Olaf Oriksson conquered it on a bet. Olaf Oriksson of course became Olaf the Terrible, who is now dead, by all accounts.”

“You make it sound like that serves us!” Lord Tront bellowed. “This Boyfucker is even worse! With Olaf we suffered almost no raiding and piracy was confined somewhat as well. Oh, he had a healthy hate for you lot, that one! But after that folly between him and late Lord Lohgar we had peace with him and he even smacked the unruly Jarl's at the border over their fingers and had them do recompense when they crossed the Ingval!”

“With this development, Kendrar can be yours once more, my lord.” Lee gave the man a smile.

He was trying his best to find something amusing in all of this, but his mind was dark. Reports claiming the gargantuan giantess they had dispatched north with Master Furio was dead along with the other that supposedly existed had crushed his hopes of recapturing his homeland of Maraskan with their help.

“Oh, we are going to claim all the land!” Tront pointed his finger at him accusingly. “All land between Ingval and Bodir shall be ours for this, be sure!”

Somehow, a potential near-doubling of their kingdom's territories did not manage to wipe those sour looks off their faces. One of Lee's officers standing behind at the tent wall mumbled a curse, but the Nostrians' ungratefulness was not the reason. On Maraskan, pointing ones finger at someone was an incredibly rude gesture, a grave insult that could warrant bearing of steel. Here, on the wrong side of the world, Lee doubted the oaf of a lord before him would understand that.

“Then take it.” He kept his smile. “The north and west bank of the Ingval are arable patches of land. Fishing grounds along the coast are rich. All you need to get them is kill four thousand Thorwalsh who, as it happens, are already past your door step.”

He gave a light-hearted shrug before moving on: “Your scouts will have seen the same as ours. The land is empty! Half was smashed by the she-beasts and the other half torched by Halmar Boyfucker after he took the able-bodied and slew the rest. He did your work for you! Now you must slay him and all is yours.”

“Nostria is home to more than forty thousand souls.” Hypperio added his thin voice in support. “You have already raised large levies and are raising more, as you say. Surely you can muster the strength to knock Jarl Halmar into the dust?”

Lord Perainhold's eyes narrowed full of hate: “These Thorwalsh rats are everywhere and fighting with iron determination that levies cannot stand against. They took Salza by storm, need I remind you?! Near four thousand the city had! They hacked the bridge with pickaxes until it collapsed behind them. These are not mere raiders or pirates! They are avengers with no intention of going back home alive!”

That was all true, everyone in the tent was aware. Hjalmar Boyfucker had decided to claim revenge for Olaf's death and the destruction caused by the giant, monstrous girls. He had taken all survivors of Thorwal with him, along with the entire city of Kendrar and any villages south of Merske along the coast. Anyone not wanting or unable to fight he had put to the sword and left only scorched earth in his wake. Salza had been plundered and burned to the ground as well. It was war.

Lord Tront beat his fist on the table so hard that Lee was glad he had picked up his cup again in time.

“But it's you he's after!” He growled. “You dispatched these monsters into their land, don't you deny it! Now it must be you, your soldiers facing him, not ours!”

What happened with the giantesses was still a topic of hot debate amongst the command staff as reports were conflicting. It seemed clear that while the horribly huge one called Janna had lain waste to a score of villages she had stopped her destructiveness upon arriving at the capital and joining with her friend. Then there was queer talk of demon worship in the city, an earthquake, even miracles, all kinds of things that belonged more to Black Tobrien or Maraskan at the moment than here. At times even General Scalia looked puzzled but it took a long time knowing the man as Lee did to be able to tell that.

“Halmar's troops are threatening our only recently secured supply lines.” Scalia calmly but finally spoke. “I am as concerned about him as are you, to be sure.”

“Then why do you sit on your men like brooding hens, my lord general?!”

The tone was harsh and insulting but the general commanded enough courtesy and respect for a correct title at least, even in this man.

Scalia did not even so much as unfold his hands to reply: “The Andergastian campaign was a disaster. The heir is dead, the ascending king regent missing. There is no telling what the impaler will do. We must sit here and block their path. A spilling south of Varg's remaining forces must be circumvented for your sake as much as ours.”

As usual did his laboured speech command respect and seemed to calm his opposite. For a split second, Tront's face showed a grimace, him realising that he looked like a fool.

“As for your land claims,” Scalia went on, slowly and steady as a wagon that had to halt every few words to climb over a cobble stone, “Gareth will have a word to say about that, as are Prem, Waskir and Olport, if they still exist.”

His hands finally unfolded so that he may study the map in front of him. Prem, Waskir and Olport were three other Thorwalsh cities, Prem across the gulf, Waskir and Olport further north respectively. He was right, Lee judged, they would never consent to a Nostrian land-grab such as Lord Tront had suggested, but Lee had hoped that nobody would mention that.

“What do you mean, if they still exist?” A young, pock-scared knight raised his voice. “Your giant monsters are dead, everyone we questioned said so!”

“Wailings of tortured Nostrians.” Scalia spat dismissively. “Thorwlash martyrs' mindless brags and taunts.”

Lee refilled his cup and took another swallow, thinking if it could be true.

The old general gave a shrug: “If either of them died, we should have seen their bodies. They are huge. According to some, the two have moved north and died there. If Thorwal is weakened enough then Horas might be willing to second your claims. But for that, we need your troops first.”

“You'd have us neglect our own lands for the sake of your supplies.” Lord Tront noted sourly.

“As it is in your interest.” Scalia folded his hands once more. “Hjalmar will not content himself with killing peasants and he lacks the patience for a siege. Guard our baggage trains and he will come to you, where your levies are on the defensive. In the end you shall have fewer peasants and a kingdom that is almost twice as large. To my estimation that is a fair price.”

- Several days earlier.

While she still sat, thought and ate as much as she could force down into her belly, Janna saw a development unfold on the other side of the market square. Food items, tables, barrels and such were moved aside and heated arguments were brewing. Goals were erected, hastily assembled and looking like soccer goals. They had a ball of some sort as well, looking as though it was made of wood, but clearly it was something other than soccer they meant to play with it. Every player, exchanging shirts to achieve to teams that could be told apart from each other, had a wooden baton in his hand.

“What's going on there?” She asked Furio.

The mage squinted his eyes.

“Ah, Imman.” He recognized. “A brutal sport and the Thorwalsh play it most ferociously.”

A gold coin caught the light and reflected it into Janna's eyes revealing the source of the commotion to her. Hasgar was there, as was Frenhild and others with lots of coin. They were making book, taking bets by the drunken people pissing their recently gotten wealth away. If that wasn't normalcy Janna wouldn't know what was, which was astounding, had there not been a sea battle, a crushing and the ultimate death of their jarl a few hours prior.

“How is it played?” She asked.

“Uh...” Furio shrugged, gesturing in the air. “I'm sorry I, uh...I wouldn't know.”

He turned to Graham who shivered with terror.

“Oh, come, spit it out lad!”

Graham really was queer character. Despite his age, Furio addressed him as though he was a boy and just looking at him Janna would have done the same. He just didn't look man enough, even though in this day and age boys of fourteen could be considered men sometimes, marry, go to war and all that.

Graham's speech was slurred and hard to comprehend on account of his condition.

“Th...” He stammered, swallowing. Even his voice was boyish, too high, weak and soft. “There are fif...fifteen players and one ke...ke...cork b...ball. Above the g-goal is one, e...in the goal is th...three points!”

He gasped for air having forgot to breathe.

“Hmm.”

Janna was intrigued. She made her way over to the playing field, munching on this or that morsel while she crawled. All of them froze when they noticed that she was coming, hiding the bats behind their backs sheepishly and someone tossed the ball into a nearby ditch. All of the assembled were visibly drunk and merry.

“Don't stop on my account!” She laughed amicably. “I want to watch!”

That loosened a few drops of sweat many a brow.

“All set?!” Frenhild shouted on the sidelines and the players nodded.

“Hold on!” Janna grinned. “I haven't bet yet!”

She bet Hasgar one hundred gold coins that the team in the leather vests would win. They looked larger, stronger slightly than those in the dirty, white shirts. Then Frenhild stepped into the middle of the field and tossed up the ball of cork, much like in basketball. That a bookie should be the referee as well was an unwise decision but Janna kept that thought to herself. There really were fifteen per team, she counted, but the playing field was eerily small. The teams looked like fighting squads facing each other.

And they were.

When the ball came down the quickest player leapt and beat it towards the other team's goal while simultaneously receiving a blow by wooden bat to the face.

“Halt!” Frenhild shouted. “Shirts get the ball!”

Obviously, the move had been illegal and the injured, bleeding player was being dragged off side to be replaced by one of five from the sidelines. The fouler was not reprimanded however. The shirts stood in formation, looking grim. The ball was passed from one player to another, then to the next all while storming forward. When one of the vests tried to get close and attack him, some woman in a shirt punched him square in the jaw.

“Foul!” Janna called, laughing.

The players stopped, looking up at her in confusion.

“Uh, no foul?”

The awkward faux pas was overlooked and Frenhild tossed the ball up once more. Apparently, punching a player in the face with a fist was not illegal. Furio hadn't lied when calling the sport brutal. It looked more like a brawl than anything else. Sometimes, the ball was tumbling on the ground, forgotten. Other times the fist fighting went on even though Frenhild was shouting and a goal had been scored. It could be very confusing.

“Don't let me down now!” Janna tried to encourage the vests when they were six points behind after two frighteningly quick shirts had scored three balls into the goal in quick succession. The vests were down one player, all their replacements on the field. Too many were injured and all the remaining could do was try to shield their own goal and occasionally lop a far shot towards the enemy's.

At this rate, Janna would lose her stake.

“Onwards!” Hasgar shouted feverishly. He was rooting for the shirts to beat Janna who without a doubt had made the largest bet of all. Their eyes met and both of them laughed. Janna, the giant, giddy college girl didn't care about the gold coins barely larger than grains of sand. Hasgar, the misshapen, large-headed criminal or whatever he was had received so much coin through Janna's eating that he did not seem to really care either. In any case, the Thorwalsh parted easily with their wealth, especially when they were drunk.

“Come on!” Janna clapped her hands together. “Beat them up!”

And so they did, her vests, ganging up on the two best players of the enemy team until they had to be carried off the field unconscious. The shirts were spitting, furious and tried their best to fight back. Played like this it wasn't so much a sport any more, Janna noted with a frown.

It went a little better for her team after that because now both sides lacked what seemed to have been professional players. This circumstance had the character of the game deteriorate even more though.

“Hey!” Lara called from outside the city.

Janna looked up. It was almost evening by now and Laura looked more than beautiful in light of the setting sun. She looked happy too if a little tired. Her Erlenmeyer flask was empty and she left it back by the sleeping bags. She carried something else in her other hand though. Two, tiny giantesses by the looks of it. At first, Janna was excited but then she identified them as Knorrholde and Gruskona. She had almost forgotten about them after seeing that they were still there when she came out of the water. The drunk Thorwallers had let them escape, just as much as she had.

“Look what I found.” Laura smiled half scolding and half playful, carefully stepping over drunken merrymakers.

“Sorry.” Janna winced from her seat on the ground. “They slipped my mind. This city is so large and there are so many things to manage.”

“So I see.” Laura chuckled with a meaningful glance at the ongoing feast beneath her.

She dropped the ogresses by Janna's side unkindly and plopped down on her arse.

“The game ends! Vests have won!” Frenhild proclaimed loudly, just in that moment.

“What?” Janna turned. “Oh, now I missed the end!”

Last time she had checked her vests were still five points behind.

“Eighteen to nineteen!” Frenhild went to try and interrupt an ongoing argument between rivalling players.

“What are they playing?” Laura asked. They were speaking English with each other but by now the transition was flawless for both of them. It had been for a long time.

“It's called Imman.” Janna shrugged. “It's like soccer and rugby and basketball, cricket and, well, boxing all at once. It's pretty stupid. They beat the ball with a stick either in or above the goal, but they mostly just beat each other, not with the sticks mind you.”

“What?!” Laura giggled heartily in that beautiful, light-hearted way she had. She was very much the girl Janna knew and loved.

Janna shrugged and grinned before she changed the subject: “How was your trip?”

“Woa, I smashed four villages!” Laura reported to her wide-eyed. “I have to talk to Furio, I want to know what they were called.”

“Have you eaten?” Janna asked, hoping that she had not.

“Sure I've eaten!” Laura laughed. “I ate pretty much all of what ever that last place was called. Tiny settlement, desolate. But it feels pretty mighty to eat a whole fucking village.”

Of people, she omitted to mention. Janna doubted Laura had crunched the houses in between her teeth.

“Bad-ass.” She chuckled. “I was almost killed by Jarl Olaf today.”

Laura's jaw dropped good and proper.

“You're kidding!” She gasped and Janna could only shake her head and shrug again.

“A fleet out of Prem, that's a city on the other side of the gulf, and Olaf's southern one arrived almost together. Those Premer guys were kinda meh but Olaf had a few aces up his sleeve. They had so much burning fire oil or whatever the fuck it was and then they made that stinking smoke...it got pretty close. It was like gasoline, there were explosions and fireballs and stuff!”

“That doesn't sound like the Thorwalsh.” Laura's eyes narrowed. “That sounds like those catapult fuckers again. Are you sure it was Olaf?”

Their fight was forgotten, no grudges held but they hadn't talked about it either, nor the build up or much of the aftermath. Perhaps it was slightly odd but it didn't feel like that to Janna. If Laura felt any different she could have asked. She must have seen how messed up Janna's shirt was but they had still been processing the aftermath of the demon worshipper, Janna's concussion and all that. Janna sensed that the topic was near though. Laura knew Furio was a Horasian but she couldn't connect the dots. She didn't know it had been his people that attacked them that fateful night.

“I'm sure it was Olaf. I crushed him under my foot. The burning chemical they must have taken off a Horasian supply ship.”

Perhaps it was the right time to bring it all up. Janna had carried it with her for too long anyway. Any passing moment could mean that Laura would feel betrayed and that could endanger the whole plan, the alliance Janna had forged.

There were many thoughts playing on Laura's face at once. She could start an argument over whether killing Olaf and the attackers constituted a breach of the stupid rules. She could be childish and stubborn like that. But she wasn't stupid either and the way Janna had phrased it was oddly specific.

“You mean Horasian, like Furio?” She asked just as Janna had hoped in order to create a way to ease the subject in.

Janna nodded: “The Horasians are running supplies to their allies in Nostria to help them with the giants. Troops too. We ran into them.”

Laura understood: “So you met your little wizard when you went back to that place, huh? I hope you were not so gentle with the others.”

Before, Janna's mind had been adamantly convinced that she knew Furio for ages before at some point realizing that the brief battle had been their first encounter. It was a little queer but that didn't mean she regretted befriending him.

“I squished a few dozen, I think.” She said. It was so benign at this point. Dozens of lives snuffed out beneath her just like that, all because they were so much smaller than her. And still. “That battle was fierce too but not half as much as Olaf.”

She hesitated, biting her lip.

“Now the Horasians are my allies.” She added timidly. “Our allies.”

Laura looked suspicious and surprised.

“What does that mean?” She asked, eyes narrowing again even more.

“Well, they'll feed us, solve our food problems. We have to go south anyway, like I said. Might as well be their guests and crush their enemies for them. We're kinda doing it already. You did them a great favour today and so did I. Smashing their villages and killing Olaf are both part of the mission Furio and I are on. Olaf was raiding Horas like a madman before attacking their supply lines.”

“Holy shit.” Laura was aghast. “And this city...”

“Yeah.” Janna admitted, anticipating a fight. She didn't want to fight. She should have told Laura sooner.

“Well.” Laura made a face and now shrugged herself. “The place was getting kinda boring anyway. I was gonna collect food and all but, you know...”

That was a great relief. It couldn't have been better.

“Let's crush it tomorrow and then we wreak some more havoc to the north.” Janna suggested eagerly. “After that we can go somewhere new. It's gonna be exciting!”

Laura slashed her tongue around in her mouth, thinking. It might have been a step too far, too pushy. Her tongue shot out and she took something off it that she flicked away.

“Urgh, someone's spine.” She shuddered half-earnestly. “Let's not make hasty decisions. Look at us, we can go anywhere. There's a few things we have to do though, like we kinda should check on Christina and Steve.”

“Oh yeah!” Another thing Janna had almost forgotten about. There were so many things underway at once, it was easy to get overwhelmed. She ought to make a checklist, she figured. Perhaps she should have a tiny assistant of her own, just like Furio had. Perhaps Furio would make a good assistant, or perhaps Alriksander that little scholar would be fit for the job. Janna was unsure however that she wanted to carry so many tiny people around with her and bestow importance on their lives.

“Don't worry too much.” Laura waved off, seemingly having reconsidered already. “They're probably sitting in my village, eating sausages and getting bored to death. Nagash keeps them safe and that little fighter girl too. And if not, meh. Not our fault.”

Unbidden, Janna's thoughts went to Steve. They were conflicting, troublesome thoughts, such of a kind as she could not share, not even with Laura.

“We should go take them and put them with the Horasians.” She tried to play it cool. “It would be a whole lot safer for them. We don't know if Nagash won't someday decide she'd rather make off. She could kill them or abduct them or whatever. All kinds of things could happen. Lauraville is just that, a village.”

“You're probably right.” Laura said. “But you have to be aware that being with them is trouble for us. Remember how it was. I don't want to tiptoe around all the time and go hungry on account of them.”

Janna sighed, thinking hollowly, nothing in particular: “True as well.”

“Well, let's wreck our brains over that tomorrow. Do you feel like having sex?”

Janna turned her head in surprise: “What?”

Laura shrugged again and grinned: “Well it's not like there's anything better to do. You got the city all drunk while you are clearly sober. And I think our two little sluts need some punishment for trying to run away.”

Knorrholde and Gruskona cowered by each other where Laura had dropped them, expecting just that by the looks of their faces.

“Or we could use my dildo.” Laura went on. “I don't mind sharing it with you, since, you know.”

Janna shook her head and grimaced: “Perhaps if you could be a little less industrial about it.”

Laura chuckled and Janna joined in.

“Whatever.” Laura said after a moment. “I'm pretty worn out too but I smashed four villages. Mmh, I was so mean to them. It was almost too easy.”

“Well, you should try a sea battle. There's something new and challenging for ya. Hell!”

“You smashed all the ships though.”

“Yeah.”

Laura's hand came, rubbing over Janna's belly in a gentle touch.

“Ey, how is it that whenever there's any resistance you get the worst of it?”

Janna shrugged. Was that true? She had been hit at Ludwig's keep, clobbered over the head with Laura's dildo and taken all of Olaf's attempts at killing her. Laura had only taken some Horaisan artillery fire, but that Janna had shared with her as well and been hit worse in the end. On the other hand Laura had been possessed by Vengyr, sedated and enchanted or whatever by Thorgun Swafnirson.

“Someone has to protect your silly ass, I guess.” She laughed. “But seriously, today was a reminder that the world is not a buffet sometimes, not even to us.”

“Imagine if they poisoned us.” Laura agreed. “I mean, they managed to drug me up. Had it been real poison I could be dead now. Who knows.”

“Exactly.” Janna concurred. “We need allies. Smart people we can trust to ward us against those things. People like Furio for example.”

“But what if the Horasians try to kill us and his allegiance to them is stronger than to us. What then, huh?”

Janna felt in need of a strong statement: “I completely trust him. The Horasians, well, let's be cautious but right now they're our best bet. They stand to gain a lot while we are alive and we should show that to them.”

While we are alive. That was odd. But today had shown that there were ways to day here, one hundred meters tall or not and it wasn't the first time it had been shown either.

“Okay.” Laura nodded slowly before she changed tongues. “Furio! Come here!”

“Don't kill him, okay?” Janna cautioned her, disliking how Laura had called her little, trusty friend like a dog. “He's our one and only link to the Horasians and the single best tiny person I've met so far, seriously.”

Laura waved away her concerns with annoyance but said nothing. It was a surprising change of tune.

“War council.” She told the tiny mage when he arrived before them, Graham in tow. “Janna told me everything. I'm on board. My question is, are we done here?”

He looked perplexed, licking his lips between his beard, insecurely glancing at Janna and back at her.

“I...I, uh...” He stammered, turning around frightfully looking about for listeners.

Janna explained in English: “He's worried that word gets out that the Horasians are behind all this. But I dare say there's no hiding that fact now.”

Even while speaking English they had used the local tongue terms for places. Thorwal, Horas, any one listening with intent would have been able to rhyme two and two together a while ago. Janna reflected that they should have been more cautious. She should have been more cautious. If word of this got out and there were political implications it could go either way for them with the Horasians. There could be war, and Laura and Janna might be required to do a lot more killing. Or, there could be denial, and the two of them had just made a new enemy. After today, Janna wasn't very keen on facing off with the Horasian war machine.

She took Furio and Graham as gently but quickly as she could and stood up, beckoning Laura to follow. A short while out of the drunken city she put the tiny men down beside a small grove, sitting before them on her knees and feet.

“Who's the boy?” Laura inquired when she followed.

“Furio's assistant.” Janna tried to give the frightened young man an encouraging smile. “Graham. He's Horasian, was a thrall to Jarl Olaf. Draws maps. We can trust him.”

“Lucky you weren't in the Ottaskin when I squashed it, huh, little guy?” Laura grinned sadistically, sitting down. “Why 's he making that face at me?”

“He's got Bell's Palsy or suffered a stroke or something like that.” Janna explained, wondering if taking the tiny man along had been a bad idea. Laura could kill people for a lot less than giving her a funny look and it wasn't clear if the rules still stood now. “He can't move that side of his face.”

Laura pulled down one side of her own face with a hand and laughed mockingly.

“Lad, the map.” Furio beckoned, understanding that it was most wise to shut the banter down before it could take wing and lead somewhere.

Graham fumbled and gave it to him and Furio spread it out before his feet, crouching. The light was still sufficient at this point.

“You ask if we are done here.” He addressed Laura. “May I assume then that you are on board?”

Suddenly he was all military man again.

“Sure I'm on board.” Laura replied as though it was an insult. “I told you as much a moment ago. Given you reason to doubt me, have I?”

She was good at speaking the local tongue, Janna noted. She sounded just like a local, and a noble one at that.

“To be fair,” Janna chimed in, “we came to destroy Thorwal and it kind of looked like you were rebuilding it.”

Having Furio and Laura face off in a battle of wits and pride wouldn't end well for the tiny mage, she sensed. Of course, Laura had just been playing around, no overarching plan, no final motive. It was just how Laura operated most of the time. But Janna could see that this war thing had stirred her curiosity, if not drawn her full attention in seconds.

“I have created a base of operation for us.” She proclaimed proudly, lying through her teeth as Janna knew. “If we are done here already we can smash it and move on, but I don't know where. If we are not done, we need to know where to go next and attack the enemy in any case.”

She made it sound militaristic too but ended as a mock, college-girl version of a general.

Furio gave a weighing nod: “Olaf the Terrible is dead. That is most important. His fleet is sunk as incidently is the fleet of Prem, which could have been trouble down the line. For now, our supply lines are safe, thanks to Janna.”

“I destroyed four villages today.” Laura threw in, fishing after some praise for herself.

Her attention was definitely captured but Janna knew that four villages were not near as important to the war effort as that which she had done today. Nonetheless, Furio seemed impressed.

“Four, you say!” He studied the map before him. “I told you of Tjoila, up the Bodir. What else?”

“Well, whatever three villages are behind that.” Laura grinned.

Furio took a closer look: “Lad, come here. Tell me if there are more villages in between here and there that the map doesn't show.”

With a timid look at Laura, Graham edged forward, peered over his masters shoulder and shook his head.

“Good gods!” Furio exclaimed. “Tjoila, Rukian, Angobodir Valley! And Auplog, but that one is almost unclaimed territory already.”

“Unclaimed territory?” Janna inquired quickly. That patch of the map was still grey in her mind.

“Yes, there are prospectors along the Bodir up that way, deep into the Ogreskull Steppe.” He explained. “Thorwlash rarely go there, inhospitable territory. They rule themselves, soldiers of Phex and fortune, gold washers, rejects, outcasts, barbarians. They have a city way up stream, it's called, uh...lad?”

Graham stuttered before belching the word out: “F...Phexcaer!”

“Yes.” Furio agreed. “They need not concern us here though.”

“Then why were you so surprised?” Janna asked, unable to put the reaction.

“Because it's far!” He looked at her heavily. “She made it all the way up there and back! Did you run, per chance?”

“Yes.” Laura admitted and shrugged, visibly content with herself.

Furio drew a circle on his map with his finger but the drawings were too tiny for Janna to see.

“All the villages here are gone.” He stated matter-of-factly. “That leaves...no, please!”

Laura had gotten up and brought forth her foot all in a second. Graham and Janna shrieked in unison but the shoe settled two tiny meters beside the two tiny men, squashing only earth. Laura drew it sideways and away from them, tearing the moss, grass and stones off the ground.

“What are you doing?!” Janna shouted at her.

“Two-Face.” Laura pointed at Graham, cold inconsideration in her eyes. “Draw me a map.”

Janna's shock changed into admiration when Laura's buttocks crashed onto the ground again. It was pretty smart. She should have thought of it herself. Graham did not need to be bid a second time. He snatched his master's map off the ground and went scurrying on the patch of black brown earth Laura had created.

Furio could only look on and try calm his ragged breathing.

On this ground it was a little hard to see, but Graham soon understood how to employ little heaps of earth for mountains, different sized rocks for villages and cities and trenches he dug with his hands for rivers.

“Now there's a useful little guy.” Laura commented her approval. “That here is Thorwal, right?”

He had thrown patches of grass onto his map where the sea was and it was pretty obvious. He nodded.

Furio stepped onto the map while it was still being created, crossing an X by villages he knew had been razed, or rather erased already.

“That leaves four villages here.” He pointed south along the coast of Serske and Merske, both carrying an X. “This is Kendrar, the only city within reach right now but if we go south we would pass it in any case.”

Kendrar lay at the mouth of a very small river, a good part north of the Ingval that marked the bottom of the map and the border to Nostria, Janna knew.

“And that city?” Laura pointed at a city right on the southern bank of the border river.

“Salza.” Furio said. “In Nostrian hands, our allies.”

“Better not smash those.” Laura mumbled amused. “What about north?”

North, that was quite something, Janna could see. Graham was still busy there, placing features on an and on and on before checking with his map. The villages along the Bodir all carried an X but due north of Thorwal the city there were singular villages all around the gulf of Prem. Then there was the city of Prem, as well as Islands in the Gulf, large and small.

“Phew, those are simply too many.” Janna scratched her head.

“None-sense!” Laura objected, gesturing at the south. “All this, one of us could flatten in a day. The Thorwalsh are our enemies now, right? If we want to hit them good we have to go north. Look at all the villages along the coast and north of that mountain range!”

Janna thought that destroying the capital, killing Olaf and sinking two of their fleets was a sufficient blow but now that Laura's mind was fixed on genocide there was no easy changing it any more.

“Those are the Hjaldor Mountains.” Furio said, referring to the eerily huge patch of tiny earthen heaps reaching almost into the centre of the land arm that formed the gulf of Prem.

Thorwal went on and on still north of that, for what could only be hundreds and hundreds of kilometres.

Janna sighed: “Aren't there any high-value targets, population centres we could hit? What about Prem?”

“Of cities the Thorwalsh have only but a few.” Furio scratched his beard. “Cross out Thorwal, go north and Prem is the closest to us, though still very far away if we go by land. We could cut across water, if you can swim it, here, over to the island of Hjalland, destroy the villages there and use it as a shortcut. But Prem will be almost empty now, I'll wager. Lad, how many souls in Prem?”

Graham looked up, trembling.

“Less than three thousand, my lord.” The lad brought forth without stammering and more comprehensively for once. “But it is Thorwal's second largest city.”

“Wow.” Janna made, letting herself fall backwards. It meant that a huge part of it's population had died today at sea. She never thought to ask or care were those went that she didn't gather. Perhaps a few made it to shore, swimming, but that was far fetched. She had been well in deep water when engaging the fleet of Prem. Without a doubt, most of them had drowned.

“With Prem out of the picture there are only Waskir and Olport left.” Furio marched northwards on the earthen map, pointing at the first big stone. “This is Waskir, way up north from the Hjaldor Mountains and west of the Great Olochtai.”

He gestured to another mountain range to the east of him, separating Thorwal and that inhospitable steppe he mentioned before. If Graham had modelled them accurately, these mountains were truly huge.

“Olport is even further north.” Furio pointed into an area were Graham hadn't even gotten yet.

Eager to please, the tiny cartographer hopped over and quickly placed a stone with some grass north of it, indicating that it was another port city. It was way far.

“And villages and villages and villages.” Janna frowned at the map. “They are along the coast, mostly and since the cities are small it would do us little good to climb across the Hjaldor Mountains for a shortcut either.”

“Unless.” Laura licked her lips, leaning forward. “Unless we did it on our way back.”

She dragged her finger through Graham's beautifully crafted map, starting from Thorwal and moving along the coast.

“We smash all this.”

Her finger moved to Prem and through it, then around the tip of the arm and up towards Waskir but ignoring it in order to stay by the coast and around a smaller, rounder formation of mountains north west of the city. The mountains were surrounded by villages and north of them lay Olport where Laura's finger stopped.

“Up to here and then we swing around south to Waskir first, the villages there and the others inland.” Her finger moved south after roughly ploughing Graham out of the way like a bug. “We cut across the Hjaldors and get back to Thorwal again. Then we can move south, hit Kendrar and from there we're almost in Nostria.”

“That would take a week. Maybe more.” Janna was sceptical. “Didn't we say we were going to check on Steve and Christina? Why do you want to wipe out almost all of Thorwal all of a sudden?”

Laura's plan was effective in terms of destruction. This way only the villages east of Olport would remain as well as Islands off the coast. If the map was accurate then Laura's plan would turn Thorwal into a barely populated land.

“This is far more than anything Horas can expect of you.” Furio chimed in insecurely, understanding increasingly less.

“When we fight we should do it properly.” Laura held against. “Let's exceed some expectations. If the Horasians and others see that we can basically wipe out a whole kingdom if we want to, they'll think twice about crossing us.”

“Or they'll do everything within their power to kill us as quickly as they can.” Janna rebutted with an apologetic look at Furio.

“Oh, come on!” Laura snapped. “Let's go on an adventure! All we ever do is play around. Let's do something real for once!”

This out of that mouth, after all the shenanigans.

Janna sighed: “That's self-refuting, not to mention crazy. Do you really want to walk all day and sleep in a different place every night?”

“It's like a hike.” Laura shrugged for emphasis. “There'll be new places, new sceneries, not to mention all the people we get to smush and eat. Your concussion is gone by now, we can move on!”

She grabbed Janna's hand tightly and grinned while Graham swallowed hard and turned pale as milk.

“I'm feeling better.” Janna sighed again. “But why don't we just go south? Smush Thorwal City, Kendrar, cross the Ingval and meet with the Horasians. I'm sure they'll find enemies enough for us and getting there will be a hike too, and not as long and tiring.”

“That's what they'll expect.” Laura said in English, vague enough to betray that she didn't know that for certain. “If you want to be their robot, fine, but I'm going north and I'm taking this little mapmaker with me.”

“I'm not leaving you again.” Janna said softly. It was the most important thing not to lose each other as they had before. Laura's day trip had been okay because Janna knew roughly where she was and was waiting for her. To let Laura go on this half-mad voyage alone simply would not do. And in the end, Janna would get what she wanted and they had something huge to impress the Horasians with.

“Well, then you and Furio will have to come with me.” Laura smiled pleasantly.

Janna thought of Steve again but washed him aside in her mind the moment after. It was wrong to feel anything for him. She may have had a little crush, but that was it and it was wrong anyway. More than anything else, she welcomed the change of scenery. Steve and Christina would be fine, she told herself, and Laura was right, the two would only be killjoys anywhere they'd take them.

They went on their first forced march within the hour. Laura had shown how it was done, making it all the way up to Auplog and back. A village called Njalsklint was under their feet within the first ten minutes. It was tiny in number of houses but packed with people who had fled the capital and been dumb enough to linger here in hopes of returning as soon as the giant girls went away. The idea to have them return to Thorwal and help stock food only came after Laura and Janna had stomped everyone to porridge.

“Make food and continue rebuilding.” Laura had commanded while throwing a fistful of gold into the drunken the city before they marched. It was only a measure to keep them occupied and that there be something intact to destroy on their return. Knorrholde and Gruskona were gone again, run away while Janna and Laura had been out of the city. There was no trace of them and nothing to be done about it, but Laura vowed that she would crush the tiny ogresses if they encountered them ever again.

Janna carried Graham and Furio in her hands but did not require them to know the way. They followed the coastal road north and it couldn't have been made any easier.

Vaermhag was slightly larger than Njalsklint and even more overcrowded. Though tired, Janna and Laura raced each other to the place and flattened it. Houses, people, tents, animals, Janna felt a little sorry when she crushed a dog trying to defend it's owners. Afterwards Vaermhag was only a patch of wet, trampled earth and splinters.

They reached Varnheim by nightfall and made their camp next to it's flattened remains. Some survivors spared helped light the fire of their piled up, broken homes. Afterwards they became Janna's and Laura's last snack of the day. Janna's belly was still full from overeating in Thorwal but she told herself that she'd be less hungry in the morning if she forced down a few dozen. The journey was harsh already and she couldn't remember ever being so tired as now.

The people begged pathetically and Laura got horny. She had taken her stone dildo along with her. While the sun vanished beautifully behind the westernmost outreaches of the Hjaldor mountains, Janna fed the last living inhabitants of Varnheim to her girlfriend's sex. Working Laura with the dildo got her horny as well. She was able to retrieve a still living woman from Laura's vagina and used her to stimulate herself. The rest was crushed by Laura's orgasm when it came if they hadn't been suffocated or drowned on Laura's juices before. Then Laura took over Janna, pushed the woman deep inside her and stimulated Janna's clitoris with her tongue. The woman came out afterwards, dead.

Furio did not like to see any of this and had taken Graham into the flattened remains of Varnheim to look for supplies. Janna had completely forgotten that her two tiny charges couldn't live on people like she and Laura could. They came back with sour faces, mud-spattered blankets and some dried fish.

Going to bed early made for a very productive second day, Janna had known for a while. Sleep experiments where people had gone to bed at sunset and risen again at midnight to meditate for an hour before sleeping again and rising with the sun had yielded spectacular results. The test subjects reported that they had not known what being awake meant before doing that. Modern society with electricity, films, internet, nightclubs and homework assignments didn't really allow for that though. Here, it was different. And to sleep, Janna had only to gaze a while into the beautiful starlit sky on most days, and not even that on this day. She was asleep before her head hit the edge of her blanket.

Sleeping on hard ground was healthy too. Nothing was worse for the human spine than a cosy, soft mattress. Thus she awoke well rested, but with a menacing pain in both her legs. Janna wasn't unfit by now, but the swimming had been a little much for her muscles. There was only one thing to remedy that. Gritting her teeth and more sport. She'd only get stronger legs in the end and that was good. The march to Thorwal had caused her many blisters that had popped and turned to horn. She'd get more blisters now, but that too would only serve to make her harder in the end. If she wanted soft soles she could have tiny people shave the rough skin off for her, she supposed. But for now, harder was better.

It was still dark. Laura was asleep as ever at this time of morn but Janna could see Graham and Furio already busy. Graham was creating another map in one of Janna's footprints. Finding that little guy had been the best thing since finding Furio. The landscape he created with much love for detail had to be a close-up of the surrounding area and Janna could tell why Furio had him make it too.

“We are at a crossroads.” The tiny mage proclaimed when Janna rose.

She knew what he meant and it wasn't the road. Just west of them in the gulf was the island of Hjalland with three villages on it. The swim was doable, Janna had seen the Island the day before even from Varnheim. The problem was that there were more villages on the mainland. The solution was simple. Split up. Janna would do the mainland. It wouldn't be wise to swim the distance with her aching muscles. She could barely walk the distance right now to take a dump but yesterday's food had moved downwards and required room. By tomorrow, the people Janna had eaten would be poop too, even those she had swallowed alive.

The product of her digestion was almost as large as a house, drifting in the sea where she left it. She needed water to clean herself afterwards, or else she could have gone into a nearby wood. Doing the business publicly like that brought home the other realities of march and war for the first time. Janna felt positively like a soldier.

Laura was groggy from being woken early but agreed that it was wise to move quick. She agreed with the plan as well though she did not really relish the idea of taking the swim before breakfast. When she walked barefoot and naked to the beach to splash some water on her face she almost stepped on Graham. As a result the lad was particularly distraught over the fact that he had to accompany Laura to the island. It had to be that way though. Janna wasn't going to put Furio in Laura's hands but Laura needed someone to guide her towards her prey.

Graham sketched a copy of the map onto a sheet of parchment, fast as a speed painter, and then they were set to go. Laura was going naked and Janna had to carry her sleeping bag and clothes with her. They'd reunite at Ottarje, the third village along the coast. After that they'd reach Prem easily. One village was at the east coast of Hjalland. Laura would hit it first. Then she'd do the one in the centre and lastly she'd destroy Ljasdahl on the northern shore from where she'd be able to see Janna and find Ottarje hopefully without incident. People would try and flee on boats as Janna had seen before. It wouldn't do them any good today.

“Hold on, little monkey.” Laura laughed and set Graham on the top of her hair. Janna hoped the boy survived. He was exceedingly useful. If Laura got him killed somehow they'd only have Furio to rely on, who couldn't produce miniature maps on demand like Graham could.

“The next village is called Daspota.” Furio informed Janna from the palm of her hand. “There is a river leading into the Hjaldor mountains. If you follow it, you will find Rybon easily enough.”

And so it was. Framed both sides by forest and sitting at the mouth of the river, Daspota seemed an almost idyllic place. Janna came, walked over a few houses and any boats she could see and made the screaming people her breakfast. She crouched over them while they hacked and stabbed at her boots. She wasn't very hungry but ate healthily nonetheless. When she was done she just let her crotch and butt fall down on top of the remainders. That crushed most of them flat and sent a little more than a dozen into fleeing that she bulldozed along with the houses before moving on.

The Hjaldors were higher, even to her, than Janna had expected. She could see them looming before her. Furio had no idea how high the highest mountains were. Perhaps Graham had. To her, there were mountains that exceeded five meters in height and were steep, large rock formations. To cross these mountains Janna and Laura might have to look for valleys and climb smaller mountains and thus require more time than anticipated. It was a little worrying because after Rybon there would be no food between here and Thorwal.

Janna destroyed the village anyway when she found it, tiny and dismal as it was. She walked on a ridge line above it and trampled loose so much earth and rock that she created an avalanche which rolled over most of it and buried it along with it's inhabitants. Anybody she encountered while walking met a screaming end beneath her soles too.

The road ended at Daspota but to find Ottarje Janna had only to follow the coast. It wasn't even remotely noon when she arrived there but to her dismay she saw that many people were fishing on their boats and ships and made hastily away when they saw her. But just as they were making for Ljasdahl Laura emerged on the island, trampled the village and jumped into the water, breaking the ships on her way to Ottarje. The swim over took only a few minutes but all the time Janna needed so that there were only flattened corpses and ruins left when Laura arrived.

“Woo, it gets real cold after a while.” She commented, shivering when she had solid ground beneath her feet once more.

Graham was dry, safe and sound atop Laura's head and looked less intimidated somehow. Perhaps it dawned upon him that he was way more valuable than he looked and that Janna and Laura would only cut into their own flesh by crushing him.

“Hjalland is depopulated, master.” He informed Furio, mumbling through his hanging cheek when back on Janna's hand. It had something hollow to it, a testament to observing Laura's actions on the island no doubt.

For the people on the ground it must have been way worse still. One day they would have been enjoying life by the sea, spending their days fishing, cooking, raising their children and what else, and then one morning a gargantuan, naked behemoth climbed out of the water, filled her belly with them and squashed all the rest beneath her bare feet.

The area here was more hilly than by Thorwal, the land more bare. After Skjal, a tiny heap of old and dismal houses by the mouth of another river, the ground was almost all rock with moss on top. Clinging to a bank of earth and stone, there was no escape for the two dozen villagers which allowed Laura divide them into three groups, one for her and one for Janna to eat and four withered, old people whose heads she scrunched in between her fingers. A pinch, that was all it took to kill.

Prem was a city perched on cliffs. Attacking it was difficult because it was erected between rock formations. It was a hard place and smelled of fish, salt and seaweed. The piers, hewn from rock, were relatively empty. There were a few fishing Snekkars, a trading cog, a Knorre and a Vidsandr and the warships that had escaped Janna the day before. The city had no walls but it was easy to see the two major escape routes on the rocky ground.

Laura closed off the first and Janna stomped right into the city. A few arrows were fired up at her but were of no consequence. Her boots found a few victims but Furio had been right. The city was almost empty.

“They have come!” Someone screamed in terror. “Arm yourselves!”

Janna picked up the ships and smashed them against stones to break them. A Skeidh had already tried to make loose but with far too few hands on deck to get rowing. She smashed the ship with the sailors still on board before moving to block the other escape route.

“It must really suck to be so small.” Laura noted while she regarded a flailing woman in her hand.

She sucked her into her mouth and swallowed. They moved crouching towards the city centre, eating people as they found them. Furio and Graham were safely on top of some rock.

“Obviously.” Janna agreed, crunching three boys between her teeth. “Getting eaten must suck too, and imagine being digested alive.”

Laura grinned. She must have found the next woman in her hand a little too dirty because she rubbed her clean on her pants before tossing her onto her tongue.

Janna took the clothes off some of her morsels. They tasted better that way. On others it was simply too much work. She tried to rip the tight blouse off a screaming woman and ended up tearing her little arm off instead. A boy lost a leg the same way when she tried to rid him off his pants. Once again, people were nothing but insects compared with her power.

“Leave some food for our little friends.” She reminded Laura when they had eaten sufficiently and began crushing houses. It was easy to forget that Furio and Graham needed to eat as well and probably hadn't had a single bite so far that day.

Survivors seemed to sought the harbour first in search for ships and then turn to enter a huge wooden hall with ornamented gable and runes carved on it. They let them escape that way and flattened the rest of the city beneath their feet before Laura moved over the building and simply sat down on top of it. The wood cracked and splintered and everyone inside was squashed flat.

“Please, we are Garethians!” The head of a group of four splendidly dressed men begged when Janna uncovered them beneath an overturned wheel cart.

They were traders, likely, and the owners of the trading cog in the harbour. Grasping for straws, they had made a point unknowingly. They couldn't have been aware that the Thorwalsh were Janna's and Laura's enemies.

“We have nothing to do with the Thorwalsh!” Another of them begged. “We can give you gold, lots of gold if you let us live!”

Janna looked at them for a second before she made a decision. No survivors. Without mercy she stepped on them and twisted her foot, leaving only smears. Afterwards, Furio and Graham got their pick of foodstuffs from the market. By the looks of it it was mostly salt fish, but Graham had found an apple and Furio a heel of bread to go along with it. When they withdrew and Janna picked them up again amongst the smashed ruins, Furio pointed out three market stands where he had seen people hiding. Laura trampled everything afterwards, leaving none and nothing.

The rest of the day was spent moving along the coast where the land was more arable again. First south towards Aryn and Treban and then east where Laura and Janna swam over to the island of Runin to destroy Runinshavn. Janna didn't like wasting so much time on one village but Laura once more argued that doing a half-arsed job was out of the question. By that time, Janna had fought the pain in her legs for so long that it had almost gone away completely, plus the swim was not long at all, even shorter than the one Laura had taken to Hjalland and back.

The weather had started to change though. Strong winds were blowing that built rogue waves to incredible height. Swimming through that with a giantess' perspective was like some movie, almost surreal. Putting Graham and Furio atop her head was smart, but more then once the tiny men were drenched and sprayed by seawater when waves crashed and broke against Janna's head. They found Runinshavn and destroyed it without incident. By now it was routine. Aryn and Treban hadn't been any different. Crushing people never got old but Janna yearned for something other than Thorwalsh beneath her feet.

When they climbed back to land and gathered their things, both of them were cold. They had no towels and used an edge of their sleeping gear instead. Still with clothes on Janna was freezing on account of the wind and her wet hair. It started to rain, softly at first but then harder until it was pouring. It was only drizzle to Janna and Laura but they were wearing t-shirts still. They opened their sleeping bags to blankets and wrapped themselves in them while moving on. There was no other way, no roof existed large enough to provide shelter. Laura carried the lantern and night vision goggles in her hands from then on, but did so without complaint. The Erlenmeyer flask they left there, agreeing with each other that it had no use here.

At a village called Kord Janna made the locals believe that they be spared if they provided two rain-proof cloaks and fresh, warm clothes for Furio and Graham. Janna would have liked to wrap herself in furs and waxed leather like the two tiny men. She could feel her nose run and Laura sneezed while ending the villagers under her Chucks.

The possibility to become ill was worrying. She didn't know if viruses could affect her or Laura since they had become huge somehow and both of them were vaccinated against a whole army of diseases but if one of them got a fever they were in a hellishly bad spot for it. Just a while longer and they'd go south, Janna told herself.

They were faster than she had anticipated and Laura spurred her on even more but Janna couldn't keep up with the jogging pace for very long. Nonetheless, five more villages met their ends beneath the two of them before it was evening. For some Furio had to navigate the girls and one, Guddasunden, they had almost given up on finding.

Continuous movement kept them warm, as did sleeping together and the nose-running and coughing stopped as suddenly as it had come.

Laura had put people in her shoes and Janna had copied the game. It was entertaining to feel them squirm and when they got crushed her weight pressed them so flat against her sole that she could barely feel the wet splotches they became. She had some just loosely in her boot who did not survive for very long but she put in a few more every time she found some. The ones she stuck in her by now horribly reeking socks lived longer though she was certain they were begging to be killed. One by the big toe of her right foot plainly put his head under it to have it roll over and crush his skull. Most of them squirmed and that was the best part of it, but they also served to suck up her sweat with their clothes and hair.

When she pulled off her boots in the evening, camping next to the smashed remains of Orvil, her feet smelled much better but the tiny toe slaves smelled rank and were dead or half so. A few loose ones had become one with Janna's socks too. She was simply too big, too powerful and heavy. She discarded all that were intact enough to be picked up in one piece by throwing them into the fjord before her.

Furio's and Grahams attempts at lighting a fire had utterly failed. Before, Furio might have conjured up a flame or even a lance or a ball of it, but those days were over clearly. The two gave up on rubbing wet sticks together in the rain and sat huddled beneath the capes of their cloaks, trying to get some sleep. Janna and Laura had it better in that regard, cuddling nakedly with each other under the blankets.

Tomorrow there would be another village just like Orvil, more fjords, more rocks, more moss. Two days later they had reached the Grey Mountains. Waskir was behind them somewhere. They hadn't ventured close, needing it for their way back. The amount of villages was staggering. They usually sat on water, preferably a fjord or a bight were they were safe from flood waves. The land became barren and rocky again while Janna and Laura criss-crossed over the map from place to place, killing everyone in the process. Sticking people in between their toes had been a great idea. It made marching that much less boring. Janna had long accepted that her feet and legs were hurting. Such was the way of march and war. Still it seemed easier than she had expected. There were so many here to eat and turn into insoles.

At this point it had become difficult to still consider the Thorwalsh anything resembling humans. Janna supposed that it was only normal after crushing and eating so many of them every day. The death-toll had to be in the tens of thousands, or somewhere close. Anyone that got away usually was unable to warn any other places because Janna and Laura were not only gigantic but also terrifyingly fast.

That instance changed when they arrived at Olport. The city looked like smaller version of Thorwal, though left intact and squirming with tiny people. Whenever a boat had gotten away, whenever fishermen had returned to their villages to find them smashed and flattened they must have sailed here, Janna thought. Two bridges, a small and a large one spanned the river, the mouth of which was full of tiny, anchored ships. They way they rocked back and forth lightly on the water was so calm and pleasant to look at. There were no outer walls or palisades, just a number of buildings against a the river and a huge hall on a hill that looked like the overturned hull of some gigantic vessel.

There were farms outside the city and a small, ancient stone fortress on a hill on the opposite riverbank to the great hall where the hetman must have had his seat. Other than that, there was not much on that side of the river, just a long, stony pier and some more houses, but much fewer than on the western side.

The city had been waiting, armed to the teeth. Warhorns were blown, deep drums beaten. Shouts of war erupted from thousands of throats.

“Stay safe. This is going to get ugly.” Janna told Graham and Furio when she deposited them on the ground.

The fighters spread out from the city, trying to prevent destruction. There were multiple thousands of them, one gigantic shield wall with spears, axes and swords and rows of bowmen behind. There even were horses, mounted warriors, an exceptionally rare sight in Thorwal.

“See those yards with houses, encircled by wooden stakes?” Laura pointed. “Those are families of note. Up that hill, the buildings around that overturned boat is where the hetman lives.”

“And the fortress?” Janna beckoned towards the back of the city.

“Old thing, probably from another age.” Laura shrugged. “I don't think they use it for anything other than in Thorwal. They don't really believe in walls all that much.”

That was true. Except for Thorwal City, whenever she had seen a place encircled by palisade-like structures they had had gaps in them where any enemy could be fought. It might be that they were intended as bottlenecks, or else sitting behind a stockade and waiting for an enemy to breach them was simply too boring for the headstrong Thorwalsh.

Laura chuckled when the first fleeing peasants squelched under her feet. She bent and picked up one running man.

“What's he?” She showed the struggling man to Furio.

He didn't look Thorwalsh at all, wearing furs and skins, head to toe. He looked more like an Eskimo, by his face as well that was browner and his thicker, rounder, somewhat Asian-looking features.

“Nivese!” Furio called up. “Northern most people!”

“Are we that far north?”

Graham quickly mumbled into Furio's ear who passed the information: “Not as of yet! The icy lands of the Nivese people are more northern still than the Gjalskerlands, but they do whaling so it is not surprising the Thorwalsh took them as thralls!”

“Another slave, huh? Poor guy only wanted to munch some blubber.” Laura crushed the Nivese in between her fingers and flicked his body away.

“The horses are coming!” Furio warned. “Keep us safe!”

They were coming indeed, tiny men on tiny horses.

“Aw, they're riding ponies!” Laura noted with a most delighted smile.

It had something cute, or else comical, the fat bellied animals with their short, stunted legs. Atop them sat tiny Nivese warriors with short and recurved bows.

“Are they having their thralls do their fighting?” Janna asked sceptically.

The Nivese showed no sign of breaking their tediously long charge. If they were smart slaves they could have turned east and tried to run away.

“The children of thralls go free.” Laura explained but Janna had known that already. “There are only men, so I think they just want to protect their homes. Let's crush them.”

Horas bore the Nivese no ill will that Janna knew of, but as it happened they were at war and the tiny, determined fools and their ponies had decided to join the battle.

“Keep them away from our friends.” She said and the both of them moved forward.

Their bows were stronger than their short length had led her to believe, but her face was high enough to make a difficult target. There were perhaps two hundred riders, maybe less, but their formation was loose. What the ponies lacked in speed they made up in agility too. Janna's first stomp failed to flatten anything other than moss and grass.

Even though the rains had stopped the ground was still full of water and slippery to tread upon.

“Fuckers!” Laura spat when she found out as much and almost fell trying to stomp on the riders who seemed miraculously unaffected by the treacherous ground.

But in the end, they were small and slow. The Nivese tried their luck at creating a large circle around the two giantesses, firing arrows on the move. That turned out to be fatal mistake. Janna and Laura just took a step into their circle and trampled everyone they got under their feet.

“Hah! Hah!” Riders spurred their ponies, riding without hands, stirrups, bridles or even saddles.

While the two half-circles dissolved, the mounts got into each other's way and became easy prey for Janna's feet. She had taken new, fresh toe slaves every day and no doubt they had to listen to everyone that was being crushed beneath her soles if her stomps hadn't rendered them blissfully unconscious.

The cacophony of noises beneath Janna was a mixture of commands in a tongue she hadn't heard before as well as shrieks and screams of terror. After a very short while, half the riders had found their end and the remaining half bolted east in a rout. A nomad, disorganised military like that was prone to return to battle though, Janna reasoned. The Thorwalsh shield wall formation was advancing but still way too far away to do anything.

“Hunt them down!” She shouted to Laura but that was utterly superfluous. Like a toddler on an anthill, wearing a menacing grin, Laura went after the fleeing riders getting as many of them underfoot as she could.

When Janna looked down after a while of squelching mounted bowmen she found that her jeans and shirts were riddled with arrow shafts.

“Right flank, double time! Left flank, shorter!”

“Oorah!”

“For Swafnir! Olport! Thorwal!”

Janna and Laura had moved so far east that the puny shield wall formation had to change course. It went not very well and orderly. Such a long and thin spread formation was hard to maintain. The Horasians could have done it, Janna was sure, but this mob of barbaric warriors had too little training in formations for that.

“I think it's fine.” Janna told Laura who was still feverishly crushing the remnants of the cavalry. Laura meant to do a thorough job however and danced left and right over the last few dozen. Not a single one escaped which was quite impressive. A few half-squashed ones could be heard moaning somewhere and some ponies neighed to be put out of their misery.

Janna made sure to step on a few of those while she made back to quickly check on Graham and Furio's well-being.

“Olporters, if you are marching any slower you would go backwards!” Laura proclaimed defiantly, legs widespread and hands on her hips. “Are we going to have a battle or not?!”

Her chucks were smeared with fresh blood and remains and in there too were people of a previous village, thrown around ere they were ground to smears or suffering within her sock between her toes.

“These Nivese were ten times braver than you and now they're all dead already!”

Janna wasn't sure what she had expected to happen at Olport. If it was another battle, why not, she thought. But somebody in that complete mad and useless shield wall had to know that what they were doing was futile, that she and Laura could stomp them like grapes in a vat no matter how many or how fierce they were. Their formation was three times as long as Janna was tall but they couldn't very well climb on top of each other to attack Laura or her anywhere meaningful.

But Laura's taunts played the proud and stubborn warriors like fiddles.

“Berserkers! Forward!”

“Gjalskers, with me! Charge!”

“No! Not yet!”

“Yaaa!”

There was no telling who led this army at all. Janna could make out a few figures with obviously fine clothes, velvet and fur cloaks, golden chains around their necks and the such like. One man even wore gilded chain mail and helmet and a heavy, cumbersome axe with shiny stones inlaid in gilded steel. It couldn't be pure gold, that would be just too idiotic to fathom.

Janna had seen berserkers before but telling them apart from Gjalskers or Swafnir priests in turn was sheer impossible at a distance. Those that fought clothed were definitely not Swafnir priests, but not all that were naked and tattooed could be Swafnir priests either. She knew that Gjalskerlanders were more northern, more hard and more wild than the southern Thorwalsh. But here, the Thorwalsh people of the Hjaldingers dwelled as well, had they not crossed by the Hjalding gulf two or three days past, by Waskir. The Hjaldingers were something in between, apparently, or of their own. Furio had not been able to make that clear enough, seemingly too lacking a thorough understanding of the subject matter. To Janna they looked all the same and it was of no consequence.

Berserkers were huge, wild, crazy people, fighting with an axe in each hand or one huge, two-handed one and with no regard for their own lives. Armour only slowed down a man or woman such as that, as apparently did clothes sometimes. But if the Gjalskers were any different, it was hard to see.

A good fourth of the force loosed out of it's ranks and stormed headless at Laura, screaming. Janna used the confusion to swing west herself, outflank the shield wall and come out behind them all.

“Hey!” She waved her hand at them sweetly. “I'm behind you, crushing your city!”

She did nothing of the sort, just standing in between Olport and the fighters, but a horn was blown and the chaos was perfect. Some who ran at Laura turned and reconsidered, bumping into those behind them. Along the shield wall, people wanted to move into all directions at once. Bowmen were unsure were to turn and have melee troops protect them. From the main force, not a single blow had been struck so far, or a single arrow fired.

Some berserkers seemed to lose their minds and started attacking each other.

“Have you ever seen something so useless?” Laura frowned. She just needed to raise her voice a little to be audible over the screams, horns and shouting.

Janna shook her head: “Do you mind cleaning this up while I hit the city?”

“Knock yourself out.” Laura smirked back.

The vast majority of people were fighting and just as Janna turned she could hear the crunching sound of Laura's weight on people. She smiled. Over ninety meters tall and nine thousand tons heavy, Laura was a killing machine. Janna was taller still and heavier by three thousand tons, but she had had her fill of battles for now.

“No you don't!” Laura shouted, marching right through the line to block the many who wanted to go after Janna moving into their city.

Olport looked pretty empty. Janna stepped on a few houses and kicked through a few more, revealing those that did not partake in the fighting. They were either very old or very young, sick, with child or Nivese and female. Janna crushed them all. In the harbour a ship made loose, but the mouth of the river was too crowded with anchored ones to get through, bound hull to hull because the piers could not offer docking space for so many.

In the city, death was a more personal affair. Out on the field, Laura squelched fighting people by the dozens. Janna killed them mostly one by one. A shrieking big-bellied woman ran out of a house before her feet and became one with the trampled earth road a moment after. A disoriented blind man, a limping grandmother, a Nivese family shouting in their strange, alien language all met their ends beneath the hard leather soles of her boots.

And then she slipped out of them, doing it all on socks still while people were struggling in between her toes, pushing against the unforgiving fabric. They died eventually too, hitting the ground to many a time when Janna stepped anywhere, on anything or anyone else.

On socks she could feel her evil deeds, her victims, their struggles and their ends better. Her power over them was beyond comparison and she could feel herself getting drunk on it. To think back how she and Laura had played on acting morally in Thorwal seemed absurd now. Still, what she was doing conflicted her on the inside but that was strange since she wasn't doing anything she hadn't done before. In near every village there had been defenceless creatures such as these. Perhaps it was only that there was time to reflect now, time bought by Laura and her stomping feet still dealing with the army outside the city.

Janna blinked the thoughts away and turned a cold side. It was cold here, very much so, ever since she had shrugged off her blanket back where Graham and Furio were. It was so easy to kill and crush and trample the tiny people. She climbed the hill to the great hall and smashed everything there. If there had been people, she hadn't seen them but they were just as dead when she was done.

After that more houses crunched beneath her, and the occasional runner. When she arrived crushing and destroying at the market square by the harbour on the western side of the river three tiny figures stepped out in front of her as though to bar her passage.

“Stop in the name of the Twelve!”

Now here was a conflict of a different kind. The speaker was female, perhaps of an age with Janna, clothed in white and icy blue robes. She was flanked by two older male priests of different gods, one in brown and beige, the other deep blue all.

If they were Thorwalsh it was hard to tell. They were neither tall nor tiny, their hair not southern but neither braided as Thorwallers often did. Janna could have stepped on and crushed the three and went on but now that she had already halted she might as well play this out. Behind the trio three houses gave hints of whom she was dealing with. It was Thorwalsh architecture but the engraved pictures on the wood and pillars were not consistent with Swafnirism.

“What are servants of Travia and Efferd doing here?” She asked evilly, feeling very much like the monster she was. It was in a positive way, an erotic way. She was wet in the loins too.

The colours of their robes she could only do so much with, but the goose and the dolphin on their temples were easy giveaways. The third, the young female's, Janna couldn't get a rhyme on. Firun, the god of winter and hunting seemed logical since it was very far north but his animal was an ice bear far as she knew. The temple, slightly larger than the other two, showed depictions of wolves.

The male priests seemed too afraid to speak and the female seemed shocked by the fact that Janna had heeded her words so far.

“Do the Thorwalsh not shun the Twelve?”

It was her last attempt at getting a response already, Janna decided. If they wouldn't speak she'd crush the guys and masturbate with the girl while flattening their gods' houses. Furio would object, perhaps, if he dared, but he was too far away to see and Janna was worked up. If she was really a servant to Horas perhaps she should spare the priests and the temples. But then again, this was war and gods weren't real, no matter what Laura said about that whale.

Janna's horniness was real though. Her pussy wanted the girl. It was almost twitching for it. A response didn't matter any more. Her shaking fingers plucked the priestess off the ground and her foot crushed the other two flat where they stood. Janna wondered what they had been thinking, getting in her way like that.

“No!” The robed girl screamed in terror when Janna's sock-clad foot moved to demolish the house of Travia. “They are hiding in there!”

Janna crushed it anyway, letting her weight sink through the roof. She thought she could feel a few pops and squelches.

“Didn't receive the hospitality they prayed for, did they?” She asked grunting. Her breathing was laboured.

“Does Efferd protect those who seek shelter?” She went on before trotting the respective temple flat. Some had, apparently, but fewer. “And what little god do you serve?”

She turned.

“Don't do this, please!” The priestess begged through her tears. She was very much of an age with Janna and that made it all the more powerful to be able to do this.

Janna's body collapsed and her jeans-clad behind came down on the largest temple with a crash.

“No!” The tears wouldn't stop streaming from the female's face.

“There were the most in your temple, am I right?” Janna asked her. “Because the Thorwalsh up here serve your half god too? Or the Nivese?”

It was the most logical conclusion but she didn't find out if it was true or not. Wanton beyond care, she popped open the button of her jeans and pulled down the zipper. At first, the priestess didn't put up much of a fight so Janna used her harder. She struggled then and it was good.

“Busy without me I see.” Laura came stomping by, blood-smeared shoes, crushing houses and hunting people.

Janna could only moan back at her, grab her and pull her down into a kiss. Then she struggled out of her pants and panties. Laura smirked when she found the female on Janna's crotch, picking her up with her teeth. The priestess was still alive while she being smothered between the sex and tongue of the two gargantuan lovers. She was still alive when Laura swallowed her after Janna's orgasm too.

When the stronghold, the bridges, the ships and all the houses were smashed to bits and splinters it was evening. Somehow, Janna still wished there was more to kill. They had forgone supper too. Furio and Graham weren't allowed to set foot in Olport. Instead, Janna plucked the two from their hiding spot, wrapped herself in her blanket again and moved on.

Before it got too dark they found three more villages up the river that split in two arms a little south. Nadrafall sat at the fork and it's inhabitants were trapped and devoured, all. It was long since Janna and Laura had eaten normal food and today was no change in their diet in that regard. No doubt there was alcohol to be had in masses, but the two drank river water instead. It had become their custom somehow. War and marching was not a time to be drunk and hungover.

They challenged each other to game of swallowing as many people alive as they could. The goal was to feel them squirm eventually but that didn't work quite as well as Laura had clearly hoped it would. Hungry, their bellies digested the tiny, living morsels too quickly or else they drowned in the water they drank. Sometimes Laura reported to feel a single kick or a desperate beat of a fist but according to Janna's own experience it was barely recognizable.

Thinat was up the river, almost into the Grey mountains and they ate it's inhabitants too. The last village on that day had no name on Furio's map and it was so small that Laura spread out her blanket and laid down on top of it, beckoning Janna to lay down by her side. Then they hugged and tussled, rolling around to flatten everything good and proper.

-

All inhabitants of the nameless village die because too giant girls decide to sleep on top of them. Once again, there is no contention in my mind that we are dealing with giant girls here. Their playfulness, even wantonness at times can not ought be explained.

How they do it does not matter, I suppose. I admit that I am beyond grappling with the unnecessary slaughter. What I am having trouble with is putting in terms what happened to the people of Thorwal. Not the city, as of yet. That is still to come. I speak of every village and city along the coast, from Njalsklint to Runinshavn all the way up to Olport. The term 'removed' comes to mind but does not quite do justice to the reality I have witnessed. Exterminated and killed both are accurate and still fall short. Crushed and eaten would be more detailed but I fear too graphic to be repeated in halls of study. Perhaps murdered is the right word. I shall leave this decision to his Royal Magnificence's censors to make.

Mountains slow the giantesses down. This might be very important observation in the future. The highlands that connect Grey Mountains and Greater Olochtai are inhospitable but not require any climbing on their part. Still, they have to go up hill and down hill, and they have so grossly overeaten the day before. Overeaten on men and women no less, devoured alive. They could barely wolf down anyone at Nadorp this morning, trampling the gross under their gargantuan feet instead.

Now it is evening again and Waskir is before us. These lands are called the Waskir Highlands, but hills are smaller than the ones we crossed today. For once, it's not a port city we attack and also a disproportionately fortified one. Young Graham tells me that the walls and palisades have been erected to combat the threat of mountain clans come raiding out of the Olochtai. He is a knowledgable lad and I trust him. I have to. All I know up here I know from him.

He informs me further that a great part of the city is made up exactly of those mountain men the walls, complete with crenelations and parapets, were meant to ward against. They are wild Hjaldingers, southern Gjalskerlanders and Fjarningers. When we are done, only Gjlaskers and Fjarningers will remain. More than half of Hjaldingers and Thorwallers are dead at this point.

Day to day, we are travelling in the gargantuan hands of Janna. She is gentle with us and seems to consider us valuable. Her slightly smaller friend, Laura, considers us tools, servants. They both have the right of it somehow. We are captives first and foremost, though I do my best to act as though I am their equal.

In trying to be ally to these creatures it is best to be honest, lest they feel betrayed afterwards and kill at a whim, out of emotion. It is also best to render oneself free of hypocrisies. Janna's frown seldom means anything good and the fortifications of Waskir have her vexed now. They are bewildering to me as well, having believed the tales about Thorwalsh prowess. What we saw at Olport and many a village had confirmed that believe. Why the Hjaldingers decided to fortify this city I can only explain by guessing that the wild men of the harsh, hard mountains love fighting and raiding even more than the former.

Let it be noted that Waskir seemed to have been a centre for metallurgy. The Thorwalsh never managed to produce steel of high quality and thus this knowledge might be of little consequence. It is certainly of even lesser consequence now. For some it might be noteworthy because it presents the second contradiction to Thorwalsh decentralization after the capital city. In my opinion as a scholar, Silem Barroco's proposal still stands: The primary mode of living for the Thorwaller is, or rather was, the village.

I judge Waskir's walls twenty meters high in total, which means that they reach around Janna's knee. It will thus not surprise anyone that the city, in spite of it's fortifications, is utterly indefensible. The giantesses complain that many inhabitants are too dirty to eat and there is no large enough water source accessible to them for cleaning. Laura makes a jape about eating Graham and myself but these kinds of things fail to rattle me any longer. At this point, even the lad seems less affected.

The giantesses eat whom they deem clean enough and kill the rest of those surviving the brief, initial encounter rencounter by throwing them into the fire pits that had been used priorly for working metal.

The screams of the burning

Drawing here from it should be noted that being filthy might per circumstance ward against being eaten, though not against being killed. The city yielded enough for them in the end, so I cannot tell how long the giantesses can go without food for certain.

Before we arrive at the Hjaldor Mountains there are only three very small villages and I inform the giant beings that they had best eat all they find. They heed my advice, for once not forcing people into the confines between their toes, a practise they had taken up a while ago on the march. The last village is Fjarngard and it yields far too few souls to sate the ever hungry bellies of the giantesses.

We all are making the climb hungry. I haven't eaten in a day and neither has my companion. Our captors seem to have simply forgotten and our stale bread and dried fish has run out. Though being carried it is exhausting and dangerous. The peaks here are high, unpassable for an army or even most wanderers, and the map is woefully inaccurate. Graham tries his best to sketch in the path we are taking but the endless shaking, tilting and up and down barely allows it. I'm writing this in retrospect, for I could not hold the quill steady either. Perhaps it was good that I had not eaten, or else I might have wretched all over again.

One day into the mountains and the giantesses do not fare very well either. They are unused to lack of provisions and complain of stomach pains. The hungry looks I am given by Laura start to give me chills all over again. They cannot eat rocks and of mountain goats and birds of prey there are too few to feed them sufficiently.

It is hard to think on an empty stomach and the two seem to quarrel in their foreign tongue over how to move on. Graham and I recognize too late we have made an error and led the girls through the southern foothills of the mountains, making it unnecessarily hard for them. As good as this knowledge is to have, I was quite scared by the giantesses' wroth.

Laura argued long and hard with Janna, demanding she at least be allowed to devour Graham, but the larger giantess with the mountainous bosom was unyielding, much to our luck. I must note here that I am very pleased with Graham. He makes a fine student, has a quick wit and is not overly talkative. After losing my beloved Rondria previous acolyte I am hesitant to take on another student but the lad has earned my trust, not at the latest by staying and sharing the horrors of this voyage with me. He could have sneaked away in the night but never did, and I value that greatly. My burden has become a too large one to shoulder alone.