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Thorsten did not entirely recall how he had gotten to this strange place or why. He remembered the two strangers that cared for him and Léon. They had to be witchers, he judged, for their work had been nothing short of miraculous. They conversed in a queer tongue with each other, wore even queerer clothes and had all manner of potions for healing. Unfortunately, they spoke very little of the common tongue and so there was only so much Thorsten could speak with them in the dimly lit room with four beds where they were kept under guard. There were boards nailed before the window, but they looked as though they had been there for some time.


The man was called Steve. If not for that otherworldly name, his apparel and his foreign language, the strapping, young fellow might have been a Garethian for all Thorsten knew. The girl Christina had sot-black skin and coarse hair, suggesting that the both of them were from a place far, far south of the world. Other than names and expressing gratitude conversation was hard and it burned under Thorsten's fingernails to break out of the room and be free.


Thanks to Steve and Christina, Léon's fever had retreated, his wounds were healing fine and he swallowed water, broth and soaked bread and even talked some when he was awake. Before, the Horasian had almost been a corpse.


“Lionel?” He had asked the first time he had opened his eyes again and Thorsten had had to tell him the gruesome news.


“His brother. Dead.” He had explained next to the black witch Christina when she seemed to inquire as to why a tear was rolling down Léon's cheek. It had almost been sad enough to wet Thorsten's own eyes and it certainly had Christina's.


She and Steve were terrified of their situation, that much Thorsten was able to tell as well. In their place he might have felt just the same. Witchers were most often met with hostility when caught. But now the two of them had Thorsten's gratitude and he'd be damned before he let anything bad happen to them. The jailers were most forthcoming to him and Léon, calling them milord and even apologizing over the fact that Thorsten, by now back to full strength and growing restless, was not allowed to leave the room. They seemed suspicious but appropriately courteous to Steve too. For Christina, some of them only had contempt.


“Aww.” One guard had mocked after placing a bowl of hot broth with carrots and onions into Thorsten's and Steve's hands, placing Léon's on a stool but pouring Christina's onto the rushes right before her eyes.


Christina had cried and Thorsten's anger had flared so hard that he had broken the man's jaw. That had been this morning. He had given his food to Christina and gone hungry, wondering ever since if the next time the door opened he'd receive the long overdue mid-day course of salt mutton or a punishment.


“Thorsten.” Léon said weakly from his bed.


He rushed over, leaning over the small man.


“Will they not let us out yet?”


“No.” Thorsten softly shook his head. “I punched one of them.”


Léon sighed, or else it was meant to be a laugh: “You're a big oaf, you know that?”


He coughed.


“You should rest some more. I will get us out of here when you are on your legs again my friend.” Thorsten tried to reassure him.


Léon's face hardened: “To bury my brother.”


“Yes. Are you still in pain?”


“Pain? Hurt?” The witch robbed over on the ground, fumbling with her red bag of potions.


“No.” Léon smiled at her and even managed to extend a hand to rub her cheek with a finger.


Thorsten didn't know if it was smart to touch a black sorceress' face. Some people claimed one could get accursed. On the other hand, he had heard the claim that it was good luck as well. Steve sat on the opposite side of the room against a wall and sighed. He was almost as restless as Thorsten, often walking up and down or pushing himself off the ground on his arms until he was tired, seemingly just to have movement. That was a sentiment Thorsten could well understand.


“You two, away!” A brisk voice commanded suddenly outside the door.


There were footsteps, the sound of the wooden bar being removed. When it opened a young knight in chain mail stood there, giving Thorsten a challenging look.


“Olafsson?” He asked, trying to look big, an effort that was thwarted as soon as Thorsten rose. “My lord, we have wronged you. You are free.”


My lord was the wrong title. Sons of jarls and hetmen didn't have titles, though they were commonly well revered. Thorsten understood by now that it was a courtesy and that it looked stupid to object to it.


“I am not leaving without my friend.” He gestured at Léon. “But I'm glad to be let out of this room and should like for my two other friends to be allowed the same.”


The knight chewed on his tongue.


“They are not allowed.” He finally said. “Lord Kraxl mistrusts them I'm afraid.”


Lord Kraxl was the man in command here, Thorsten had gathered from the guards' apologies.


“That headless rooster mistrusts his own shadow.” The vaguely familiar voice of a woman said.


From behind the knight's back stalked the small, slender, beautiful woman that Thorsten remembered admitting him and Léon into her village. It was the giantess' village, in truth, but the huge monster seemed to heed her words. The woman had something of a cat the way she moved. After he woke up in a stockade with Steve and Christina it had also been her to get them out of there and in here.


“I remember you.”


“Well done!” She chuckled.


“I owe you my gratitude.”


There were a lot of people Thorsten owed gratitude to as of late.


“And I seem to recall pledging my service to your queen, fighting giants.” He added towards the knight. “I still mean to do that once I'm done helping my friend bury his brother.”


Léon winced and the knight turned to him, surprised to find him awake: “My lord! How are your wounds?”


“Better, though the arm will be a while yet.” Léon slightly nodded his head on his straw-stuffed pillow. “Thank you, Sir...?”


“Egon.” The knight bowed. “At your service.”


Léon turned his head some more and gave the man a further inspection: “You must be Lord Firunz' son. How fares your noble father?”


Thorsten remembered how oddly well informed the Horasian always seemed to be.


“Well!” The knight replied, once more surprised. “But I'm afraid he is too gouty to participate in our war.”


“A wise man, that. War, you say?” Léon's tone was still weak but suddenly had a bit of that mocking edge, that gameness again. “Why, does the oak tree finally rattle it's branches?”


Egon looked at him perplexed before turning back to Thorsten: “We remembered Queen Effine mentioning you. Once again, my apologies, my lord. We thought you died. Where are your men?”


“Feasting.” Thorsten gave a shrug. “In Swafnir's halls.”


“They're dead!” Léon explained, scoffing when the knight looked irritated. “As are most of your own I can only presume by that scent of hope in your voice, Sir.”


He coughed and Egon's face darkened.


“Our standing is not good.” The knight admitted to Thorsten. “We may have need of you. There seem to be wild mountain savages surrounding us and we do have too few men. So long as we are surrounded we cannot get word out for reinforcements either.”


“Dari!” Christina asked suddenly, crawling on the ground towards the woman. “Janna and Laura are here?”


The spoken to gave a condoling frown and touched the black witch's cheek. Perhaps it was good luck after all, Thorsten thought. The giantess was dead and the woman Dari was not, and she behaved next to the knight quite like an equal if not even more familiar than that.


“No.” She said sadly, but Thorsten thought to see some faint flicker in her eyes when she did. He couldn't place it, not without knowing whom the queer names belonged to. Probably more witchers, he concluded but then he remembered hearing the names in the stockade as well. People had been praying to them or using the names to curse at their captors, swearing that their goddesses would descent on them and crush them under their feet.


“Are you being treated well?” Egon turned to the girl, speaking as slow and pronounced as one would to a toddler.


Frightful, Christina nodded, afraid of him. She had not understood why they had been chopping the villagers' heads off. Explaining that it was something about gods was too difficult without a god at hand to point to. Thorsten's whale necklace had not been of use either because the foreigners were unfamiliar with Swafnir, the one true god of the seas.


“Your men, bad!” Steve shouted accusingly from the other side of the room. “We want out!”


“I cannot let you out.” Egon apologized.


Thorsten saw a way to be of help.


“Your turn-keys are treating the girl like a dog.” He said angrily. “What has she done to deserve that? And him too, why do you keep him locked up? If you fear they curse you, I can vouch for them. Look at Léon and me, we were dying when we came here and these two saved us with their magic!”


The young woman Dari gave him a tired look: “Best not say that too loud with this lot. It's bad enough as it is.”


Sir Egon was visibly uncomfortable.


“Would that I could let them out.” He said. “But they are more important than you know. They must stay in here for safety. I will see that they are treated better.”


Thorsten felt his rage boiling but he knew he could not free these two good people by force. Still he was the son of Olaf Oriksson, hetman of hetmen of Thorwal, that had to count for something.


“I will speak to your Lord Kraxl about that.” He spat defiantly.


“And Phex with you.” Dari scoffed. “We tried to tell the old oxen that they might save the king but he rather has Peraine priests poor more boiling vine and vinegar onto his corruption. Perhaps our two young friends might even be able to save his leg so that we needn't cut it off, but to ward against that the pious oaf rather has more prayers performed over him.”


She made a sour face: “Soon it will be Boron priests perform their rites and Andergast will have lost another king.”


“That must not happen!” Egon muttered loudly, more to himself than anyone in particular.


Léon stirred on his bed: “Er, who is that new king of yours?”


“Zornbold.” Dari answered for the knight. “He is not king yet, but betrothed to the late King Aele's widow.”


“An ambitious man, I heard.” Léon commented. “How did he come to peril?”


“His lordship took a grievous wound on the haunted hill after slaying Vengyr the druid and Albino, the pale giant king himself.” Egon declared proudly.


Something in the way Dari looked at him when he said that told Thorsten that it was not entirely true. Léon seemed to feel the same.


“I find that hard to believe.” He said. “And here I thought you knights were honourable people, so loving of truth.”


The knight chewed his lip and once more it was Dari answering for him: “It was Vengyr who banished Albino into the ground and a wizard who slew Vengyr in turn. His lordship had his leg crushed under a falling rock, but it was he who led a host there to participate in the fighting. Leave the king a tale to stake his claim on. It will matter little enough, soon as he dies.”


“And here's a half-truth I love to hear.” Léon gave an eerie smile. “Something tells me that mage's name was not Jindrich Welzelin.”


The smile grew wider when Dari's eyes flashed deadly for the blink of an eye. He turned to Thorsten who understood as little as Steve and Christina at this point.


“My trusty northern brute.” He said amiably. “Sad as I am to say, it seems there is more important business than burying my brother.”


-


Raw mountain goat tasted almost like a petting zoo smelled, but Laura had eaten all she could find just the same. Eagles had barely any taste at all on account of their feathers. Eating Furio and Graham would have been welcome, though after two and a half hungry days in the mountains there was barely any meat on them, Graham in particular. Somehow Janna always forgot to feed them even though she took care to let them drink when they found water.


Once she had tossed them a raw leg of one of the goats and they had fallen over the meat like animals. Tiny, tasty animals, Laura thought, but Janna had shouted at her and shielded them when she edged close.


Hunger turned their moods sour and they were bitchy, often snapping at each other over the smallest things. Laura realized that they had come to the edge of their strength by her little adventure. It had been easy enough and a world of fun, plundering along the rich coast leaving only trampled ground, smashed huts and crushed or thoroughly digested people.


Her mouth watered at the thought of a nicely intact village before her, more people than she could eat so as to leave some for her other needs. Sex was out of question now. It had been for days. There were no people to put between her toes or in her shoes either to ease the marching and for brushing her teeth she was down to water and her index finger again.


Janna kept an eye on mouth-cleanliness, not for kissing, they hadn't kissed in days either, but for fear of caries that could rot their teeth and drive them sheer mad, she swore, once it would infect a nerve. Back when there had been an overabundance of people they had used them for that too, as they had before on occasion. Even in places that chose to fight there were always a few that could be convinced to do the deed in exchange for their lives. And once they swore it was done Janna and Laura simply swallowed them along with anything they had pulled out from in between their teeth.


No one had ever survived the practise but Laura's mouth had never been cleaner. She had some part of goat stuck in between two of her molars now, she could feel, and her fingers were too big to grasp it. When she asked to be given Graham so that he may pull it out for her, Janna accused her of wanting to eat him and not unjustly so. Laura didn't understand why they should hold on to the little guy. He had had his uses when building maps for them whenever it was needed but now that they were out of the mountains and would find Thorwal easily enough on their own surely there was no harm in making the boy a snack.


She sighed. They'd eat in Thorwal by evening, she told herself. Her decision to leave it standing proved a brilliant move. Not only could she and Janna eat there but they could get the mats of their hair untangled and more of their bodies tended to. Then, tomorrow or perhaps after another day of well-needed rest, they'd flatten the place, go south and flatten everything there and then they'd meet Janna's Horasians.


The thought was all that kept her going. They were near their breaking point. Marching on an empty stomach was something they were not used to, and it hurt, not only in the belly but in the muscles too. Perhaps finding their breaking points had been one of her motivations for undertaking this adventure, she reasoned, but if she was true to herself she had believed it to be a cakewalk as much as most other things had been. Not all things. She remembered her way to Thorwal and the fog well enough but at least there had been villages with many people. Those last few after Waskir had been so small that they had not sufficed to get her and Janna full.


It would all be good when they reached Thorwal, Laura told herself once more. But in the evening, when she felt close to collapsing, the city they found was empty and burnt. It was Thorwal, there was no mistake about it. She saw the hill with the remnants of the dungeon keep, the market square, the winter harbour, the canal. The houses were burnt out shells and even the walls had caught fire in places. Butchered, rotting animals lay on the hill of the Ottaskin and the wall was decorated with rows of severed human heads, almost picked clean by the sea gulls.


The sea gulls had left the place during some point of Laura's stay, she remembered. Now they sat near everywhere, fat and screaming at each other. When she rushed forward to catch them they flew away and not one she could get in between her desperate fingers.


She collapsed then, falling to her knees and cried.


“Hey.” Janna's voice was desperate too, her hand hard on Laura's shoulder. Her body had grown leaner and harder these past few days. On earth, Janna had been hindered from sport by her massive tits and so only swimming and yoga had been left to her, the first of which was expensive, the second of which too boring for her to keep up. Now starvation had done for any few grams too much she might have had before.


“Come on, we have to move. We have to find food!”


“Let's just sleep here.” Laura cried. “I'm so hungry and tired!”


“I know.” Janna said through clenched teeth. “Let's go.”


“But it's almost dark!” Laura sniffed on, rubbing her eyes but the tears just kept on coming.


“Furio, can you explain this?” Janna's voice was sharper than she usually addressed the tiny mage. She brought her hand forth so rash that both he and Graham lost their feet.


“They must have burned it to deny you food.” He reasoned quickly when sitting upright again. “I would never have expected this. Their own capital...”


He looked as very much in shock as Laura felt, his hand on his equally empty stomach and his face a grimace.


“Where would they have gone afterwards?” Janna pressed on harshly.


“South.” He answered at once. “It's the only logical conclusion. All other villages are destroyed.”


“Let's eat them and go there.” Laura lashed out to catch Janna's hand but she snatched it away, closing the two tasty morsels in her fist.


She rolled her eyes and pulled Laura to her feet. Then she yanked her on. There was only black earth left were before something edible might have been growing still. The first and second village were trampled by giant feet and deserted. After that, the villages were burnt out, not a scrap of food to be had.


Janna donned the night vision device to her head with iron determination. Soon after, Laura was dragged on through the darkness by her hand.


“I see a city, but it's burned out as well, just like the villages.” Janna told Furio after Laura did not know how long. Her clothes were still wet from crossing the Bodir and she was cold. She shivered and somehow that seemed to widen the hole in her belly even more.


There wasn't a scrap of food to be had anywhere, everything was destroyed. The rotten corpses they found here and there sounded more tempting with every minute but Janna forbade eating those too.


“Kendrar.” Furio's voice was tired and desperate. “I cannot explain th-”


His voice was muffled when Janna closed him in her fist again and moved on as she had before. Laura only wanted to sleep. Perhaps she was sleeping some of the way, even while walking. Perhaps some of it was dream. It repeated somehow, over and over again like a deja vu, every time Janna reported seeing something, a dead body, a village, something she wanted to inspect further. Laura did no longer get her hopes up of finding anything.


When after a long while Janna all but jumped with joy and explained that they stood before another river and a city on the other side Laura somehow expected that it was false. They had reached Nostria at last, Janna proclaimed, now everything would be better. But after wading through the Ingval and discovering that Salza had been burned like all the rest even she collapsed with a thud, first to her knees and then all the way, the night vision goggles smashing on the ground and off her head.


Laura collapsed beside her and used her last strength to drape her blanket over both them. And then she slept, not knowing if she would ever wake up again.


-


“Get the wagon out of that ditch now!” The master of wagons roared.


The men said of him that his voice could be heard for kilometres and it was exactly his reputation that had made Lee pick the man for this highly important task over the far higher ranking Horasian or Maraskan officers he might have chosen. The strength of his voice was enormous but he was only one man and a less experienced waggoner had just steered his huge, overladen carriage off the road in the darkness.


Weary Lee reached for the stoneclay bottle bound to his saddle bags. It was said that when a man drank directly from the bottle as he did now he had a drinking problem. But for once his bottle was not filled with Maraskan liquor but water, spiced with a few slices of lemon and just a cup or two of the stuff Lee usually drank.


“Race ahead and tell the advance column to make shorter.” He commanded one of his officers.


“Hai!” His compatriot acknowledged and galloped off.


The main caravan was huge, thirty giant wagons laden with foodstuffs. It was not the first time Lee found himself in such a situation. Hjalmar Boyfucker's Thorwalsh had proved too fierce for the average Nostrian soldier, peasants equipped with spear and shield or bow and quiver that most of them were. The heavy cavalry of knights and lordlings had no trouble riding down Thorwalsh and treacherous Nostrians in the field but even they got in trouble in the dense woods of eastern Nostria. And on top of that there were far too few of them, just as there were too few trained, armoured infantry in their ranks.


So, grudgingly, General Scalia had ordered fourth and fifth light infantry and all Maraskan auxiliaries to reinforce them. It wasn't the first time they travelled at night either since the Thorwalsh ambushers too easily spotted the wagon columns at day.


Today though, they did their best to light their way with torches, making them even easier to spot. It was necessary. A scout party posted at Salza had spotted the giantesses alive but starving, no doubt on account of there being only deserted wasteland left north of the Ingval that way. The messenger had ridden his horse half to death on his gallop to the capital and it had been sheer luck that Lee had been there preparing yet another caravan of supplies to escort to the Andergastian border. The city of Nostria was where most of the Horasian supply ships docked to drop their wares.


The rider had taken arrows on the road, meaning that there was danger. It might have been outlaws but the burnt out villages Lee's caravan had passed by now told him that they were not. As a precaution he had posted the advance column in hopes of drawing out ambushers too soon so to allow a horse charge from the main force. Five wagons and a handful very cautious men made up that part of his force but today, travelling with far too many torches and in haste an attacker would only have to turn his head and peer down the road in order to be aware of them.


“There ya go!” The master of wagons roared when the giant wagon drawn by eight cold-blooded draft horses was on the road again.


Hectically the spilled chests and barrels were thrown atop it again and the caravan moved on.


“Next one drives off the road gets my whip!” The short but bulky man, clad in a heavy leather waggoners cloak went on. The crack of the long leather in his hand was even louder than his voice and it made the horses and men move faster.


“Come on, ye stinkin', horse manure eatin' Andergast lovers! Keep the wagons rolling!”


It would seem that Lee had made the right choice. Nostria to Salza was a two day trip under normal but favourable conditions. If taken by forced march, faster than any reasonable man would and with the formidable draft animals taken into account would mean that it was doable. It could be done in a day and a night by a regular caravan, bar too many mishaps along the way. The wagon into ditch incident had not been the first, nor would it be the last if Lee was any judge. Nonetheless he meant to ride through the night and try to reach Salza by noon of next day, no matter what.


It was risky. He couldn't afford to lose his face over this, but neither could he lose the giantesses. He needed both if he wanted to recapture Maraskan with their help. If not by their direct help the huge creatures might loose forces from Nostria to undertake another voyage to the island and Lee meant to still be a general on that day.


The road snaked along the coast and it was cobbled and well maintained, something that could not be said of any roads or wagon trails of the north east towards the Andergastian border. The master of wagons held the pace steady and high, making even more way quicker than Lee had dared to hope. A wheel broke but it was replaced quickly, thirty strong men lifting the axle up. The pins that fixed the wheels onto the axis broke most often and they went through quite a few of those, but when the caravan master swore he'd use the next pin breaker's fingers to replace them the incident miraculously stopped to occur.


All villages were empty and burnt out, even the fields where haystacks had been left to carry off into storage after some more drying. The land was eerily devoid of people, but that might just as well have been because it was night. There were people here somewhere. Someone had filled all those fresh graves they passed, marking them with stones, sticks or even Boron wheels. The Thorwalsh had hit suddenly and ferociously, but word among the peasantry had spread quickly as well. The Thorwalsh didn't have horses, much to their disadvantage in that regard. And without ships they could only pull that neat trick of appearing out of nowhere once, which was why they were now preying on any travellers or wares being transported.


With all the levying most fighting age males were under arms anyway. Women and children had fled to holdfasts, castles, cities or went into hiding. They knew their own lands better than the Thorwalsh did. Another advantage. Still, many of them had died. Holdfasts had been burned out as well as villages, but Hjalmar lacked the strength and had scattered his forces too much to attempt a siege on a castle or walled city.


Lee was certain he had seen the face of a young girl, gaunt and pale, staring back at him out of the charred ruins of Trontsand. That village had had a holdfast but it was just as much a burnt out shell now. Of the local noble lord or any of his troops there was no evidence. Likely they were off east, guarding a different column of wagons somewhere.


Just when he started to think the Thorwalsh might have moved on from this place they hit. One kilometre down the road horses dropped to an onslaught of arrows. Then there was shouting and the war was right ahead of them all at once.


“Riders, form line, advance!” Lee called out, spurring on his own horse into a trot.


“Hai!” The men shouted back at him in unison and followed.


“With me! Feishan, you I give the foot soldiers!”


“Hai!” The officer stopped his horse at once. “Father general, I will not disappoint you!”


Feishan was Lee's second eldest son so they seldom spoke unless the man caused any embarrassment. He was prone to boredom and lacked the ability to lay back, wait and do nothing. He was prone to drink and gamble as well, that much he shared with his father, but somehow he too often managed to stir up problems while doing so.


Ahead in the advance column was Lee's eldest son and pride. Wudong was taller than his father and brother, strong and courageous. He was handsome as well and listened to every word his father told him cautiously. Perhaps in thinking he relied on his father a little too much at times. Lee had heard the complaint that Wudong misunderstood commands in a way that should seem obvious to him to be nonsensical but still carried them out without thinking. A while ago he had been tasked to transfer the oral order that a cask of Hylailer fire, the stuff in fire apples, be put on one of the supply ships bound for Nostria. Somehow he had transferred that a whole ship of the stuff was needed, causing huge cost, an investigation and not to mention quite an embarrassment in the aftermath.


Worse yet, nobody seemed to know where the stuff had went. Some believed that the talk of explosions in the Thorwal harbour gave a hint of where.


If Wudong died before Lee reached him he'd had have to mourn. Such was custom, as well as Feishan becoming his eldest and pride then. After that Lee still had three other sons. One of fourteen was being trained to become cadet at sea in Kuslik, one of seven was being taught numbers and letters in Vinsalt in an expensive boarding school and one had just been let off his wife's teat. If Lee was able to return home, who knew, perhaps his wife could give him yet another son.


Their horses galloped down the road, torches and swords in their hands. The hard-wood plates of Lee's traditional Maraskan armour clacked loudly with every up and down. On his head was a visor-less helm of black steel, lobstered brass hanging down from behind to cover his neck and sides of his throat. Steel was still harder than the rare hard-wood, but infinitely heavier. Also, steel was noisy. Plate scratched or clacked on top of itself. Chain mail rustled when the bearer was moving and was loudest of all. While not galloping down a road with breakneck speed, the wooden armour allowed for more silent movement.


But only Lee had armour like that. The wood was precious and hard to come by and the armourers who knew how to treat it were few and fewer, especially now that Maraskan was occupied. Most of his men wore Horasian armour that was by no means inferior. Horasians produced steel of good quality and plate in sheer unmatched quantities in the world. They had numerous whole regiments of men clad head to toe in steel, light infantry in particular but also helbardiers, heavy horse and such.


Maraskan weapons were more common amongst his auxiliary forces, family swords passed down for generations, but also heavy spears decorated with red feathers. Maraskan steel was the best in the world, tempered by masters who kept the secret of their art well. There were one handed blades and longer ones to be used in one-and-a-half hand style combat which the Maraskans pioneered. Lee's own blade was of the latter variety. He had inherited it from his father and he always loved the way the rippling steel shun by light of a torch as it did now.


'I will not disappoint you!' He thought in his mind as he always did before a test. 'Maraskan will be free again!'


He was still on the wrong side of the world, but for once it felt like he was riding into the right direction, though it was north now. By the wagons, men of the advance column sought cover where they could. They were in between two patches of forest and it would have been prudent to first send men into each for clearing it before moving through. The Thorwalsh or Nostrian bowmen could fire at them from two sides and had them well and pinned.


Lee was presented with a difficult decision. If the Thorwalsh didn't charge, putting his horse in the centre would only get his own men trampled to death and serve nothing. If he split his force of fifty in two and sent them into the groves he risked putting each of them before a superior force of the enemy. Also, horses were far less useful on forest ground, especially in darkness. So, he called a halt.


Turning he saw Feishan's one hundred fifty foot charging up the road. They would be exhausted when they arrived and barely able to fight that way.


“You, go tell the infantry to save their strength.” He pointed at a man and then another. “You, ride to the advance column and tell them to charge the bowmen on the right.”


They were taking casualties, something had to happen and it didn't look like Wudong would have a brilliant idea any time soon. Another embarrassment, Lee thought bitterly, and right in front of so many of his compatriots too. Perhaps he had misjudged the caution of the men in the advance column, most of all his eldest son. It was unseemly to think that, but it light of things it seemed rather obvious.


Feishan slowed his troops down only slightly. He was eager to get into the fight and eagerest to please his father. In a similar effort he had acquired Novadi mirror armour, a heavy mail shirt with metal plates sown on it, inlaid with gemstones. It was meant to make him look more traditionally Maraskan but Lee had been wroth and told him to give the thing to a juggler. Perhaps he was too harsh on him sometimes and too lenient on his eldest, but such was the Maraskan way.


The horse of the rider he had sent towards the advance column took arrows and died under him but the man jumped off and slid beneath a wagon where others were cowering. Shortly after, the men broke out towards the right, torches and swords raised high, screaming.


“Charge!” Lee shouted and kicked his heels into his horse.


Hooves clattered on cobblestone and they came rushing on. The forest must have prevented the ambushers from seeing Lee's force but they noticed him now. Arrows from the left grove greeted them but they were few, loosed in haste and found fewer targets. An arrow hissed close by Lee's head and he could tell that it was a longbow by the velocity.


Without knowledge of the larger threat to the south sending all infantry from the left grove into the back of the ambushed was a prudent move. Now, notice of the incoming cavalry came too late for the Thorwalsh with shields, axes, spears and swords in their hands as they were crossing the road. Some savage, ornamented throwing axes flew in the last instant, then the cavalry rolled over the defenceless force like a wave.


With all this talk of ogres, ogresses and the two even larger giantesses around it was easy to forget that men could crush each other with the help of horses quite well too, not quite as gruesome but just as deadly still. It had been more than a hundred coming out of that grove and Lee hoped that the other didn't hold that many again, though it was likely and there were still the bowmen to content with.


All that had crossed the road were dead in short order however. A horse charge alone was devastating. Against an unprepared force it was nothing short of butchery and almost as easy as riding down grass for the attackers. The last few were slain by falling swords, barely a rider had even taken a blow or an arrow.


“Dismount!” Lee commanded as loud as he could, gesturing with his bloodied blade. It had been too long since his father's steel drank blood but he honed and oiled it daily to keep it razor sharp. “You ten, in there and kill the archers! All the rest with me!”


“Hai!”


It sounded mighty when it came from so many throats at once. Lee made into the right grove, the eastern one where the men of the advance column were engaging a superior force. If there were as many as in the other grove his men would not suffice to tip the balance in numbers alone and if their ability proved insufficient as well then it would be Feishan to hopefully break the Thorwallers' neck with his infantry.


Light was scarce in between the trees and Lee had to blink a few times to see where to point his sword. There were no different names for short or long blades on Maraskan. Both were called Night Wind. Foreigners called them Tuzak Knives for Maraskan's capital city, but they also called any blade of their own device that looked similar by the same name. In their ignorant eyes any slightly curved blade that was fully sharpened on the long and half way sharpened on the shorter side was a Tuzak knife, requiring no Maraskan steel, bamboo hilts, round metal plates for cross guards and worst of all no tradition.


Lee's eldest son's men were almost encircled and down to a few, and there were so many Thorwalsh that they could spill past them and rush towards the arriving reinforcements, closing the opportunity to fall into anyone's back as Lee had hoped to do.


“Raaah!” A man with shield and axe stormed at the man behind him.


Lee crouched quickly and flashed out his blade, cutting both legs of the attacker out from under him, right above the foot joints. The Thorwallers were huge, hairy men, the Maraskans shorter than the average Garethian. Still, their well made steel, armour and training made them equals. But the Thorwalsh had their women fight too. Lee had almost forgotten that before he identified the next fierce, gargantuan brute stabbing at him with a spear as a female.


He stepped left and cut upwards left to right, just as she stabbed, and she gave a grunt of surprise when the tip of her spear came flying off.


“Die!” She screamed and hammered the broken shaft against his helm so sudden and unexpected that he could not dodge and so hard that it made steel and head ring equally. Beneath he wore a padded cap as anyone who was not a complete oaf did, but no amount of stuffed linen could entirely shield against such force.


'And from a woman.' he thought bewildered as he finished his cut right to left, severing her unarmoured body in two at the midriff.


The grove grew on a small hill, giving the high ground to the Thorwalsh. They made no move to employ any more tactics as it seemed however, and Lee was not in a position to do any different. He doubted Feishan could even see him where he was now. Hissing somewhere told Lee that someone might be firing arrows at the incoming infantry.


There was nothing to be done about that. The next opponent was rushing him. Even taller than the first two, this man was naked, his manhood dangling left and right as he went. On his head was a wolf skin but that served little in terms of decency. The man didn't even have a shield to cover himself, wielding too huge axes instead.


Lee took a step back blindly and lucky of the room there was or else the blow might have injured him. Even the expensive hard-wood of his armour would crack from such savage blows. The man's eyes were white and wide, he hacked left and right without concern for his own cover. It was hard to get close because he had long arms and was hacking quickly. But axes were shorter than swords and Lee pivoted and lashed out a cut through the apple of the man's throat. To Lee's great surprise that didn't seem to stop the fighter. He didn't even seem to have noticed it, still hacking and hammering with his axes. Lee let himself be driven back further.


When his back bumped into a tree he knew he had to do something different but almost too late. The axe scraped over the upper of his wooden breast plates and he bulled forward right into the naked man's arms, driving his sword into his bowels and upward. A gasp came from the man's bloody lips and he died, axes falling to the ground on both sides.


Maraskan soldiers, their armour shining in the torchlight, formed another beleaguered circle against the superior numbers. Lee had been driven back quite a bit. Above the heads and through the shoulders of men, interrupted by rising and falling steel he could see the remnants of the advance party being overwhelmed and butchered.


Lee smiled. Being slain in combat would very much remedy any embarrassment Wudong had caused. He expected to find his eldest among the slain after the fighting. Wudong would not have fled, of that much he was certain. Now Feishan would be his eldest and Lee had to love him. First he would have to mourn though, but that had time until he would be able to come to rest after this campaign or maybe even until he returned to his temporary home with the Horasians to inform his wife. She would be proud of Wudong, just as he was.


-


Dari was glad to leave the queer Horasian behind. She asked herself if he could now of Xardas and what that possibility meant. She had no poison and Steve and Christina were in with him, but maybe she'd be able to slip in during the night and slit his throat. There were still the guards though. That would raise questions and was risky but it would not be doubtlessly traceable to her. It would be safer to look for a way of framing someone else for the murder, only that was hard. Léon Logue had affronted Egon to some extend but while temporarily being the knight's prisoner he was the very important Horasian noble now, and by Dari's doing.


And Dari didn't even know if killing him was the right choice. Maybe she'd speak with him alone to find out what he knew. But that prospect scared her. The man was clearly quick of wit and full of unexpected knowledge. Also, talking to him alone would be even more difficult than killing him.


Thorsten Hafthor Olafsson's back was twice as broad as Dari and it was quite a thing to see the man stretch his arms as soon as he was outside. He wore brown linen britches that were entirely too small for him, looking as though they had been cut off below the knee. At the front he could only lace them up a third of the way, leaving his thick, coarse hair down there spill out. That mattered little however, for there was almost a road of hair up to his navel and then again up to his chest that was all hairy too.


He must have noticed the beard he had grown out more fully since coming here because he smiled like that boy he was in truth when looking at his reflection in a pale of water. Then he washed, like the barbaric, northern Thorwaller he was, splashing water on his chest, his face and rubbing beneath his armpits before blowing out both holes of his nose right into the pale.


Meanwhile Egon was engaging with him in man-talk, paying Dari little heed.


“Stakes, all around the village.” The valiant knight said. “And an arrow tower on the crossroads, but we will build more soon.”


As soon as the mountain men had been spotted one morning, eerily standing about and glancing at them in their solemn silence, the Andergastians had begun fortifying. Villagers accepting the twelve had helped them with that and Dari had helped the remaining villagers stay alive by spreading the rumour that she had had a vision of goddess Laura, urging them to do so.


Fooling the villagers was easy, the newcomers not so much, least of all Lord Kraxl. With Zornbld too frail to move further the lord claimed that it was prudent he stay overcautious and oversee that nothing go amiss. Dari rarely ever got close to the man and he had armed guard about him day and night, as had Zornbold. To the latter they wouldn't let her close any longer either, regardless of what she had done for him after his injury.


The savages made everyone uneasy, even her. After standing for a while they had turned heel and vanished into the forest again. No one knew for how long they had been there or why they didn't attack. They were still there, sometimes chanting at night.


“Toten.” That seemed to be their favourite word, though no one had any idea as to what it meant.


“You will require weapons and armour.” Egon said. “Come, my lord.”


When Lord Kraxl learned of the two surprisingly important prisoners Egon had saved from the chopping block he had been suspicious, ordering them kept locked up until further notice. It had not been until Thorsten Olafsson broke a guardsman's jaw that he had finally consented to let the Thorwaller help them in their lack of fighters.


The head of Hammer the smith was not amongst those still rotting at the now empty stockades outside the village but very much still on his shoulders. Zornbold's party had not brought their own armourer and so they had employed the smith for the meantime after he professed to be the most Ingerim-beloving craftsman there ever was. He wasn't smart, Hammer, but he was not a complete dullard either.


“Ingerim with you, milord's!” He rasped overly happily and giving Dari a barely disguised wink when they arrived before his workshop.


He tossed a finished arrow tip onto a pile of others and bowed: “How can I be of service?”


“This man needs armour.” Egon said.


The short, bold smith had grown less stout in the stockade but his arms were still as thick as always. Thorsten, whom he gave a measuring look, had equally strong arms, only a great deal longer.


“Er, I recall a certain scale shirt that used to be yours, milord.” He mumbled apologetically. “Only, er, I have broken it up and used the metal.”


He gestured at his work on the floor: “Arrow tips. We need 'em plenty I'm told.”


“I liked that armour.” Thorsten replied dully. “It served me well against the last mountain men I slew.”


“Er, there is two hauberks I'm mendin'.” Hammer turned to Egon. “If it is milord's wish, I can mend 'em together, to suit this big man.”


“Good. What do you have for weapons.”


When the Andergastian nobles issued requests to small folk it seldom sounded like a question, Dari had found. Hammer had spears to offer, a falchion that Dari suspected the villagers had taken from the raiders and a wood axe. The Thorwalsh brute was displeased but took a spear, the falchion, a long shield with a metal buckler and the wood axe, though he only used it to hack off the lower part of his shield so as to make it more round.


The knight and the warrior were still having man-talk, arguing over whether axe or sword was better in combat and under which circumstances. Days in Lauraville could be dull like that now. Dari wasn't really allowed to do anything without Egon by her side. She tried her best to keep everything in order behind the scenes but that proved hard without any real power.


Egon had power, even though Lord Kraxl had the last word about every detail, and Dari could do a little of her work through him. He was still very much enchanted with her and she shared his tent and sleeping furs. She fucked him there, on the table, on his chests with things. They had even done it on a stool though that had ended with him falling over and she fucking him on the ground afterwards. The love was not half bad, but not really sweeping her off her feet either. In return Egon heeded her council and put as many of her demands into practise as he could.


It had been Dari's idea to free Thorsten and have him fight for them and she who had wanted Nagash's rotting body buried in the ground. The smell had started to become excruciating and it had been everywhere. With the giantess' tarred head they would not part, neither with the head of the male giant. He and the druid had flung themselves off the mountain of steel even before their party had returned to Lauraville with the dying king. It was odd, as if they had known their scheme had been a failure.


Most of the climbing soldiers had made back to the ground then but two, perhaps in search of making a name for themselves or just out of curiosity, had finished the climb and come back down with horrified faces, pale as milk.


“Furniture!” One of them had sworn. “Chairs, tables, beds! It's all queer and iron but I know these things, I'm a carpenter by trade!”


When posed with the question why the stools and tables unmanned him so the man had replied that they were huge, dozens of meters tall. Dari well remembered the inside of that mountain or what ever it was and had kept her mouth shut. It shuddered her just to think of it. They had cut out the man's tongue with a glowing hot knife, for lying. The other soldier had said nothing and kept his tongue, using it shortly after to profess to the men that up there was truly nothing, nothing to be afraid of, nothing out of the ordinary, as if a mountain completely made of steel was somehow natural to begin with.


“I have changed my mind about armour.” Thorsten told Egon. He must have seen that mountain too but seemed to think nothing of it, or else he knew what kind of place this was and was not half as shallow as he seemed to be. “But I still believe it is not important as you think.”


Egon argued feverishly and somehow seemed to stick out his chest, broaden his shoulders and stand taller than he was. He wasn't a small man, not by any means, but he simply could not compare with Thorsten. Thorsten was younger than Egon but every bit of him was bigger. And there was a lot of him to be seen, wearing only the far undersized britches. It was enough to give a woman some ideas. The man was a stallion in body and fair, yet manly, handsome of face. A pleasant thing to look at, this man. Dari liked his back especially, broad and strong as it was.


“Armour is not everything, I agree.” Egon argued. “But take, say, a peasant in plate and pit him against one without plate and you will see that the one with plate fares three times better.”


“I take three peasants over your one man in iron.” Thorsten held against. “They would beat your one man down without a chance. Still, a good fighter would make short work of all three of them. It is training and strength that makes most.”


“But not if all three of them had armour.”


Both of them were wrong in Dari's experience, but then again, her way of fighting was different from theirs. They probably wouldn't even consider it fighting all that much, striking quick and suddenly, unexpected when she could and always precise. She had only ever encountered one opponent she didn't know how to tackle. Well, two if counting Xardas with his magic. The other had been a knight guarding the door to an underground bed chamber. Who was madly afraid enough to post a knight to guard a bed chamber, she had asked herself. It had been someone very prudent as it turned out. After all, someone was bad enough intent on killing him to pay Dari's absurdly priced fee.


The knight had been steel, head to toe. One often said that about kights, but on this one it was true, literally. Black, flat-topped pot helm without visor, only small holes for breathing and seeing. There was no way to his eyes or face without a very long, very thin object Dari hadn't possessed at the time. It was bolted to his breast plate. Bolted! The man couldn't move his head but there was no way to cut his throat either.


Steel boots, even the soles by the sound of his footsteps. Steel fist gloves with the heavy, spiked mace permanently attached. Sometimes there was a way around the plate by going after joints like the elbow, the knees and the armpits. But under that hideously perfect suit of armour the man wore heavy mail too. In the end, Dari hadn't killed him. She had tossed a copper over his head and he had turned, stomping and rattling like a wagon laden with iron pots and skillets, looking after the source of the noise.


He was so loud that he couldn't even hear the heavy oaken door creak after Dari had picked the lock. She slit in, drove a dirk through her sleeping target's brains and slipped back out before the knight had even been back at the door. He saw her though, being just on his way back.


“Who goes there?!” His voice rang hollowly in his helm.


“Only me.” Dari had answered innocently and hurried away.


The next day it was made known that Hermin Morningwood, the great money lender, had been killed by a ghost. The knight had never quite seen her through his tiny view holes and probably not clearly heard her voice either. Perhaps he had later realized his mistake and not mentioned that he had seen anyone, hence the ghost story.


“You think you could beat me without armour on?” Egon challenged heatedly.


Thorsten returned the fiery look: “I could.”


Dari grew weary. Sure, fighting, weapons, defences and armour were all very important in their current situation but it made for a dull talk to listen to. While she revelled in dreams about that almost prickly contract back then their conversation seemed to have somewhat escalated.


She had expected Lord Kraxl to be their destination after the smith so that Thorsten might get his chance at gnawing his teeth off on the man's stubbornness. Now they were standing in front of Egon's tent.


“Don't cry when I hit you.” Egon said when he came back out, tossing Thorsten a blunted practise sword.


“You two oafs can't be serious!” Dari gasped, overwhelmed with the stupidity. She was utterly ignored.


Egon donned padded gloves and an iron helm he hadn't even worn at the Battle of Haunted Hill. In the battle against the druids he had only worn his mail coif. Thorsten didn't have a helm and the swords were blunted, but steel non the less. He could be gravely injured in this farce, perhaps even be killed. Egon was smaller than him but still a knight and a valiant fighter, even Xardas had said so.


And Egon faced possibility of of injury as well. Thorsten was a bull. He'd get nothing worse than bruises where his body was covered in chain mail and gambeson but his feet weren't covered at all. A lame man made for a bad knight. He could face head injury too, helmet or no, Dari knew. Even a knight head to toe in steel such as Hermin Morningwood's guard could be first incapacitated and then clobbered to death by a sufficient number of hard blows to the head.


“Stop this!” She shouted at them, trying to pull Thorsten away.


The man gave her a shove, almost gentle, but Dari was utterly powerless against his strength.


“Show him, Sir Egon!” A passing soldier cheered.


More and more were gathering to look. It was a welcome change in their boring daily routines. Dari spied Lord Kraxl when he arrived, flanked by other knights. Andergastian nobles did not have much plate, for it was far too expensive. If anything they had steel knee- or elbow caps, shin guards and of course helmets.


“My lord, you must stop this folly!” She demanded, remembering too late that nothing would make him more inclined to allow it.


He only gave her a dismissive look.


“Step aside, woman!” A knight spat in annoyance and Dari knew she had to follow.


“Egon, Egon, Egon!” The assembled cheered on their champion.


Thorsten Olafsson held the blunted sword like an axe. It looked like a short sword on him. Egon lowered his stance, shield in front, weapon behind his body from where he could flash it out. He was skilled but Dari didn't know if that was a good thing now. After all, Egon wore the armour, Thorsten only linen pants that barely enveloped his cock.


“Rondra, give me strength!” Egon prayed for show. It was bravado, all of it.


Thorsten chuckled. Just as the knight started to circle him he took a step forward, bent in the knees and pushed himself up all the while smashing his shield against Egon's. It looked as though he smashed it through the man. Egon flew off his feet and backwards, landing on his back, chain mail rattling. He was stunned for a second before remembering to find his feet again.


As soon as he stood, Thorsten dealt him the exact same blow a second time and when he got back up from that one he was hit in the head with the edge of Thorsten's shield. His helmet stayed on the ground longer after that one.


“Shameful!” Lord Kraxl shook his head in disbelief. “Sir Egon, teach this brute a lesson and show him how to hold a sword afterwards!”


Lord Kraxl was a big bellied man with white streaks in the copper of his beard. He was not tall but broad as near all the knights were, hardened by a life of sparring practise. The nobles were commonly taller than the small folk for they seldom faced shortage of food, had warm fires about to warm themselves in winter and had meat on their tables most every day. On campaign their rations were better than the common men's as well.


Egon shook his head a few times too when he was on his feet again, but for different reasons.


“Gladly!” He announced nonetheless.


He launched a flurry of attacks with his sword, all blocked by Thorsten's shield. When the Thorwaller bulled into him again he staggered backwards but caught himself in time, shield against shield, paddling backwards as he was pushed. The larger man had an easier time getting over the cover and now he used his sword to beat at Egon's head. Egon ducked and lashed out at Thorsten knee below the cover.


The large man grunted with pain and Egon hit him again and again until there was blood running down Thorsten's leg. It was so stupid. Now Dari shook her head at the spectacle. Hard steel against nothing but skin, flesh and bone. Why did men always have to be such idiots?


Thorsten had a comeback, fuelled by rage that seemed to lend him even more strength. He used his shield to beat Egon out of range and charged right into him again, driving him back and back. His blunt sword was of precious little use against the mail he realized after beating at the knight from around the cover with his long arms. Whenever he could he used the pommel, letting it crash down on the heavy pot helm of his opponent.


He was limping though and caught a few more blows that turned deep purple quickly. But after one to many pommel hits to Egon's head, he had him and beat him down again and again, showing no sign of stopping. Dari had seen the look on his face before, in Gareth. Thorwallers were most often involved in tavern brawls and once their anger was aroused there was oft only unconsciousness, stark pain or lack of people to hit that could quench it.


“Yield!” It rang out of Egon's helm, begging. His knee gave in and he dried desperately to cover himself but Thorsten held his shield down with his own. His sword arm was too weak to stop the blows.


“Stop, you're killing him!” Dari screamed.


She had known it was a bad idea from the beginning. Knights sometimes sparred with each other and the smart ones taught the foot soldiers how to fight that way too. But to do it without armour was folly, though it was the man in armour who was in trouble now.


“Stop him!” Kraxl called sharply and Dari could see knights bearing steel. Those swords were not blunt.


If Thorsten wasn't stopped before they arrived they could hack him to pieces. The brute didn't even see them, still beating at Egon's head. Dari needed Egon more than she needed Thorsten and preferably with his wits about him. She dreaded having to do this in the stupid peasant dress and apron she still wore, but it needed to be done.


She stepped behind Thorsten and slammed her foot right into his groin.


“Urgh!” He grunted, his sword flying away and both his hands shooting downwards.


Then he turned, the young, freshly bearded face a grimace of pain and fury. His whale rage wasn't over yet. Dari kicked him in the stomach but she might as well have kicked the mountain of steel. He rose, sword hand still on his crotch but his shield raced at her head. She wondered if he realized that he could have killed her with that blow had she not leaned backwards and out of it. Then she jumped, extended her foot and kicked him right in the apple of his throat. Her dress tangled with her leg and she crashed onto the ground, otherwise she would have been able to land on her feet.


There was a croak from him, his eyes wide, right hand shooting to his throat and clutching at it, the other desperately trying to lose the shield. Then he went to his knees and sideways, head turning purple.


When Dari turned she saw the knights gaping at her, swords in hand, but not budging an inch. Thorsten wreathed on the ground, clawing at his windpipe. Egon's head had hit the dirt, still in the helmet, breathing raggedly. Dari knelt on Thorsten's chest, pushed his hands away and grasped his throat so that he could breathe again. He'd have a sore throat the next few days but would be able to breathe normally after a short while. She hadn't broken his windpipe, only pushed it in. The rage was vanished from his eyes and the colour of his face normalized along with his breathing.


But the inevitable followed as it had to. Lord Kraxl's ring mail footlings that made his feet look as though belonging to a frog entered her field of vision and Dari could feel the cold kiss of a sword against her throat.


“I was right to mistrust you.” The big-bellied man said from on high. “Rise.”


She did, looking up at his face. Though not overly tall the man was a man and she a woman and small. Knights were all around her, still half gaping but grim. But to her surprise, Lord Kraxl sheathed his sword and measured her with his eyes.


“Well struck.” He announced deeply before a chuckle. “Ha, young men always get into each others' hair over girls like you.”


Thorsten had shown no interest in Dari far as she knew. For him it was all about fighting and proving his strength. Egon could be a little prickly from time to time, especially when men made jealous comments to him about her. She didn't know how to reply.


Kraxl's eyes narrowed: “The villagers name you forewoman. You're young to be a village elder, not to mention a woman and both of us know that you don't belong here.”


His voice was gruff, his words always short.


'Greetings, good lord! I'm Dari, accomplished assassin and queen of the Garethian underworld. It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance.'


Her tongue was lead.


“Walk with me.” He said and nonchalantly hooked her arm into his.


The knights parted, gaping perplexedly. Egon was put onto a hastily summoned chair and was too dazed to return Dari's helpless look.


“Don't worry, I won't chastise you, or Egon.” Kraxl said after a while of leading her away. “It's not my daughter's honour he is besmirching, though I happen to well know the wroth of the man who fathered his wife. He is with the main host, south, hunting giants.”


“May Rondra lend strength to their sword arms and courage to their hearts.” Dari replied hollowly.


She was as perplexed as the bloody knights.


“Well said.” He recognized. “With Rondra at their side, who can stand before them? I'm sure as soon as I have a talk with your hetman's son he's going to tell me to charge into the forest and kill those mountain men. Then we might bank on Rondra as well and heed his words. Yet somehow it seems as though the gods have left us. Lord Zornbold is dying.”


Dari chewed her lip.


“I know that, my lord.” She said. “I hoped Egon might convince you to have my friends try save him.”


He seemed displeased: “Those two queer folk? I didn't object to Egon keeping them on your behalf but I won't have anything more than that. I went there, where you keep them, and took a long, hard look. The dark girl was grovelling at my feet and the lad started crying like a little babe when he saw the swords. What language is that they speak? Where do they come from?”


Again, she had no answer for him.


“Some of my men say they are witchers, and the cause of all our misfortune.” He went on. “They're speaking in tongues they claim. A villager claimed the two were priests of those goddesses you hold here. Dark priests or witchers, I will let neither of them near my king to be. If Lord Edorian was awake he'd object even to that wretched coward Welzelin, no matter if the man could ease all his pain just by laying on a hand.”


Dari had still no idea what the purpose of this talk was. Kraxl just seemed to unload his woes and still be cross with her somehow anyway. She wondered if she should mention Janna and Laura but feared of losing her tongue over it.


“My lord.” She asked hesitantly. “What is it you want of me?”


Once more his eyes narrowed. He had led her back into the village in between the houses. She didn't think it possible that this old man wanted her body. He gave her figure much too few looks for that. Nonetheless he stopped before Birsel's house and ushered her enter.


At first she thought he meant to lead her to Léon, Steve and Christina. Their cell was downstairs, right from the entrance hall but he took her up the narrow wooden steps and away from it. What goods Birsel had claimed for her and her whores were still strewn around in quite a disarray from the plundering, all valuables taken. It was the largest house in the village, after Nagash's enormous hut.


Kraxl looked about in some distaste.


“I frequented brothels, when I was younger.” He admitted. “Today they give me chills.”


It was queer how the man could know what this place was but evidently not know that there were one-hundred-meter tall giantesses. Janna and Laura had often wandered the land, killing and eating folk, destroying villages. Sometimes survivors would even wash up in Lauraville because there was barely anywhere else left to go. A part of Dari wanted to scream at him.


'Don't you see the footprints? Don't you see the mighty trees, smashed as though they were twigs?'


He must have passed them on his way here, Dari was certain. All he would have had to do was look at the gigantic trodden paths that Janna and Laura created by walking through the forest. Perhaps they were simply too large to see for what they were, she reasoned. And men often only saw what they wanted to see or deemed possible in their tiny minds. They would sooner believe in ghosts than in a woman that could kill them with the flick of a wrist.


“The men have established a new brothel down the road.” Kraxl went on, groaning softly on each step. He had old knees, Dari knew, but she could have told that from the way he moved before already. Perhaps he'd die if she gave him a push down the stairs, only that would serve and solve nothing.


“They took those girls that survived from here and smuggled them there, and now for a copper any man can have another go at the poor things. Even knights go there.” He grimaced. “Well, let them. I'd rather have my men well rested when the fight comes.”


Upstairs in front of a closed wooden door there was a guard, looking back at them in solemn silence. Wordless, he stepped aside to let them enter. Just before Kraxl was at the door, his mail footlings clonking on the floor boards, there was a voice coming from inside the room. It was singing and the melody froze the blood in Dari's veins at once. She knew the song. She had heard it before.


“Early one morning ere the sun was up on high, and the birds had not yet begun their song! There came the large ogress, stomping in our land, and proposed to our lord with her split tongue!”


“Come.” Kraxl pushed the door open.


“Lord Mannelig, Lord Mannelig, why won't you marry me, for the plunder that I lay before you? Your answer may be yes or your answer may be no, it shall be what you put your will to!”


Two men were bound on chairs, the ropes slung around their bodies again and again, tightly. Dari knew the man in mail as Ulf, captain of guard. The other man was thinner and smaller. And singing.


“Of mountain clans I give you brass and copper much, and their heads and their goats and so their sheep!” He sang, grinning. “I crushed them from their corpses and took them in my clutch, so you best not say no and make me weep!”


Both of them were bloodied, showing signs of having been beaten. The grinning man's smile showed broken teeth and Ulf looked up at them with dark, bloody rings around his eyes.


“It is dishonourable to torture envoys.” Lord Kraxl said. “But when they wouldn't speak they left me no other choice. Not that it helped anything. They said the same things they had before, demanding to speak to a woman named Dari. It took me a while to figure out that was you.”


“Lord Mannelig, Lord Mannelig, why won't you marry me, for the plunder that I lay before you? Your answer may be yes or your answer may be no. It shall be what you put your will to!”


“He won't shut up sometimes, but I'm certain he was mad before we beat him.” The lord sighed. “The other is mute, other than saying your name. Well, here she is. Speak to her.”


Ulf first gave him and then Dari a hard look.


“Accept your gifts I will, for I desire 'em much, so I tell you my answer is yes!” The small man sang on. “But my men say your name is Bergatroll and you are a creature of the nameless!”


“How fares your good lord?” Dari blurted out to stop the horrible singing.


She had to say something. This mess wouldn't go away by staying silent. Ulf said nothing but the singer turned his head. There was an eerie, evil silence in his eyes all of a sudden. Very cold.


“Milady wants her ale.” He said in a voice that was like a slithering snake. “It's bad up there. She has him by her feet with a chain around his neck and the other end around her ankle.”


Dari could all too well picture that and what a sobered, ale-craving Bergatroll did to the poor little serving girls also.


“When did they arrive?” She spun toward Lord Kraxl.


He looked bewildered: “Four days ago in the black of night. What is the meaning of this nonsense?”


So long already. Dari's heart sank.


“We can't give you any ale, we are besieged by clansmen!” She tried her luck.


“Oh yes.” The man's eyes glimmered with his smile. “Kuningaz Beryanoz. We had wondered where they went. They won't touch us though. Milord's wife is well acquainted with them.”


“This man is mad. It is useless talking to him.” The lord determined.


“Oh, Ulf never talks much, much less when you push him.” The man told Dari and shrugged. “I told all of this to your new lord, but he thinks I'm mad. Might as well act the part, the way I see it. I think milady will be quite genuinely mad though, once she learns that you slew her daughter.”


“My lord, how much Ale and wine do you have left?” Dari turned to Kraxl once more.


Now he was angry.


“What, you too?!” He spat. “Has everyone in this wretched place gone mad?!”


Dari knew he wouldn't believe her but she had to try. If Bergatroll came there was no telling what would happen. The Andergastians had slain Nagash but their force was a lot smaller now. Mannelig had men of his own, men that the fat, evil giantess could command, and if the Kuningaz Beryanoz did her bidding too she could overwhelm the village without trouble.


Then, if Bergatroll remembered Dari it would be bad for her for certain if she wasn't mercifully killed by Mannelig's men or mountain savages first. If anyone slew Steve and Christina Janna and Laura would be even more horrible when they came back. It was a complete disaster that could only be prevented by Lord Kraxl, a sufficient amount of fermented drink and a big pinch of Phexen luck.


“There's a petty lord, north towards the mountains!” She explained quickly. “His name is Mannelig! He has married an ogress, the mother of the giant beast you slew! We had an arrangement with them, trading food for ale and wine! You must fulfil our end or else the giantess will come and kill us!”


His slap stung on her face and she could taste blood in her mouth. Then he hit her again. She didn't even dodge or saw any of the blows coming. She was in panic. There were more important things now.


“What kind of man marries a giantess?!” He looked at her in disgust.


A man that fancied being treated like a dog and being stepped on from time to time apparently.


“A weasel of a man!” She replied defiantly. This was bigger than this lord or any of them. Bergatroll was bigger than them, by a lot. “A snivelling rat, the scum of the earth! A cuckold! A foot-licker! A queer! A madman, but a good lord to his people, or he tries to be! Dispatch all your ale and wine now, my lord, or all of us will die!”


He slapped her again, even harder, and she fell to the floor. Then he turned on his heel and went to the door. But there he waited. Dari looked up at him.


“Please, my lord!” She begged.


His face was hard, pained, bitter. There was doubt in it. Something had bestirred something else.


“I remember a Sir Mannelig.” He said gravely. “Ancient house but impoverished. The fool asked my father for my sisters hand once and was chased out of the keep. Tried his luck with other families too, never successful. Terrible fighter, a coward even.”


He shook his head in distaste: “I wasn't aware Aele had made him a lord. I thought he died, something of a fever. Yes. He took up with a giantess you say?”


“Aye, milord.” Ulf's voice was a throaty rumble. He hadn't spoken anything for at least a day.


Kraxl looked thoroughly disgusted.


“We should never have come here.” He said. “We wanted the glory of killing the famous, horrible, giant creatures that caused so much woe. And what have we gotten for it?! A dying king, a trapped force and our graves, may Boron have mercy on our souls. And now this.


He spat.


“Perhaps it is not too late.” Dari wiped her bleeding lip. It was growing thick already. “Send the wine and ale now and all might turn out well. Have my friends see to the king. They snatched the Horasian from Boron's doorstep when the man was good as lost. They treated Olafsson too, and you saw him fight today my lord. You killed Albino and the druid Vengyr at Haunted Hill. Would you let this all have been for naught?”

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