“The area was empty, but there’s no doubt she was there. The grass was flattened in a broad imprint, so I can only assume she slept there the night before. We can’t be too far behind.”

Icaria nodded. Volkhard tried his hardest to keep a neutral, inexpressive countenance, somehow feeling that Icaria could and would easily see through his lie. After a few seconds of staring him down, however, she nodded contendently and turned around.

“Thank you, Volkhard. Perhaps I can trust you after all… maybe I’ll put in a good word with my master. You’d want to be on his good side.” Icaria paused, looked at the marching troop column behind her, and raised her voice to a call that carried over the army’s dogged march, “ Firkon! Laeron! We need to talk logistics. Come here, if you would!”

Volkhard watched as Firkon jogged to the head of the marching column of soldiers, followed hastily by a flustered and strangely out of breath Laeron. Icaria, once the two were walking alongside her and Volkhard, began to speak with them.

“Firkon, you’ve got more experience handling an army than I do. How long do you think the men can keep marching?” 

Firkon shrugged.

“These are a tenacious lot. I’d wager we could continue until nightfall at this pace, perhaps even well into the night if we slow down a bit or give the men a few breaks. That being said, I have my doubts about whether we can outpace the giantess…”

“She’s wounded, I believe.” Volkhard replied, raising a finger, “She’ll likely be slower than usual. Giants as a whole also lack our endurance, given their proportionally greater frames. We certainly can catch up to her, but the issue is not whether we can reach her, but whether we can do so before she reaches the Selcenian border. Even ignoring the skirmish of the prior day, we’ve got an entire Q’thumani scouting party among our ranks.”

“Not to mention the finest giant hunter in the city!” Laeron added, winking at Volkhard.

“Don’t worry about me. If she enters Selcenian territory, she’s free to slaughter as she pleases, given the fact that the Selcenian army is camped back at Pylis Pass in Q’thumani territory. If she continues past Selcenian lands, she’ll wind up at Agopolis.”

“Agopolis?” Firkon stammered, eyes wide.

“Indeed.” Icaria responded, her gaze darkening, “The greatest of cities. The beacon of civilization. The finest gem of the First Emperor’s crown. Normal giants daren’t set foot close to the towering walls and great oxybelai bolt throwers of the grand city, but this one… we all saw the slaughter she committed upon her own kin. Every soldier here has seen her thirst for blood, the pleasure she takes in murder and suffering, and the speed with which she kills. We do not know what the true extent of her power is, and it is best we never know. She must die before she reaches Agopolis.”

Volkhard nodded along with Icaria, but he couldn’t help but notice Laeron casting occasional glances his way, glances that betrayed an emotion Volkhard couldn’t quite understand, but one that he found worrisome. Volkhard gave no indication that he noticed Laeron’s suspicious behavior as he continued walking forwards with Icaria.

“So what do you propose we do when we reach her?” Volkhard queried, wondering what Icaria’s plan was.

“Well, we’re not slogging these ballistae along for nothing, are we? We’ll pepper her with bolts, all laced with a special concoction of mine. It won’t kill her outright, but it’ll knock her out long enough for us to slit her throat. I don’t imagine that all or even most of our shots will hit, so I’d rather not count on hitting a vital point. A tranquilizing poison is effective all the same whether the bolt bearing it strikes the head, the foot, or anything between.”

“And if she reaches the Selcenian border before us?” Firkon asked, looking back at his force. He didn’t want any more men to die at the hands of men. This was never the point of the expedition.

“We forge onwards. If we’re apprehended, we capitulate, and hope both mine and Volkhard’s presence is enough to convince them that we’re truly hunting the giantess. Of course, we may never meet any Selcenian forces at all… we’re very deep in the wilderness right now. I’m not sure if there are any settled towns ahead for days… little more than grass lives in this plain, and even that only occurs in intersticed patches. I just hope we can get to her before she stumbles across anyone else… I have her figured out, you know. The senseless slaughter, even once she’s had her fill of flesh… she leaves no survivors.”

“By the First Emperor, I pray nobody else is hurt. This has gone on long enough. How many must die for the perpetuation of one wretched  life? First humans, now other giants as well… this one scares me.” Firkon dejectedly mumbled, looking at the horizon ahead.

~

Theodosia leaned on her pike as she surveyed the rolling hills. She’d been stationed here as soon as hostilities between Q’thuman and the Empire commenced, and hadn’t seen even the slightest amount of action. She’d barely even seen the odd traveler or two trekking across the hills, given how desolate the area. She couldn’t complain, of course - she was still being paid a soldier’s wage, after all - but some part of her longed to see the world beyond the Empire’s desolate borders, to campaign under the banner of a general instead of sitting in a border outpost.

“Hey, what’s the matter? You seem down. Anything on your mind?” 

Theodosia turned around and shook her head. Rhaea was a new recruit, and technically her subordinate, but the two had given up the pretense of stiff, soldiery dialogue, driven to companionship by the lonesome frontier’s lack of other varieties of engaging activity.

“Just a bit tired. Tired of being an Akrites, that is. We could be out there, fighting, making heroes of ourselves, you know? It’s not like a city-state is going to raid the borders of our Empire, and even if it for some reason did, I doubt they’d pass at this point. There’s little more than a handful of scattered farming villages around here.” Theodosia remarked, gesturing with her free hand at the empty expanse that lay in all directions.

“Yeah, well, personally, I find that boredom is a lot less scary than getting killed.” Rhaea retorted, clapping Theodosia on the shoulder, “Three warm meals a day, no marching, a roof over our heads, and a flashy uniform that we get to keep!”

Theodosia chuckled as Rhaea dropped her pike and twirled around in her red dyed linothorax, producing a faint snapping noise as the stiffened linen strips that formed the armor’s skirt clapped against each other.

“You know linothoraces are only outdated by about about, oh, no more than 200 winters, right? This is what soldiers serving under the First Emperor wore, and they’re still giving it to us today! The generals equip us like this because even they make no mistake about the fact that we just aren’t going to be doing anything important.”

“I still don’t see the problem. I know a lot of people who would kill for a chance to get paid to do nothing.”

“Maybe I’m just not explaining it well enough.” Theodosia noted sullenly, “I guess I just want to make an impact on the world. Sitting here watching clouds make their way leisurely across the sky isn’t doing it for me.”

Rhaea shrugged.

“I don’t think killing a handful of Q’thumai soldiers is making that much of a difference either, and besides, what kind of impact is soldiering? It’s all killing, destroying, conquering. If you really want to make an impact on the world, you ought to try to learn to write. Philosophers, poets, archivists, historians, scholars - they all start by learning how to write well. Personally, once I’ve made enough money wasting my days away here, I’m going to apprentice under an engineer.”

Theodosia pondered what Rhaea said. For all the young woman’s bubbly frivolity, she made a good point. Conquests and campaigns only shaped temporary borders, and harmed just as many as they helped. She was in the middle of formulating a response when she heard a shout from atop the garrison’s tower.

“GIANTESS!” screamed the man at the post, drawing the attention of the Akritai towards a rather steep hill on the Q’thumani border.

Theodosia felt her heart quicken as she laid eyes on the approaching figure. She was a giantess, sure enough, wearing clothing that amounted to little more than bloodstained rags. Thick auburn hair covered her face, and everything about her appearance screamed savageness and unrefinement.

Theodosia was utterly taken aback when she saw the giantess talking with a girl, a regular human girl, sitting in the crook of her giant shoulder. The two appeared to be in a somewhat heated argument, indicated by the girl’s angry gesticulating and the giantess’ pursed lips and heavy brow.

Theodosia cringed as the giantess’ eyes flitted over the Akritai outpost and widened, whereupon she pointed at it out to the red-haired girl on her shoulder. Theodosia, who had been watching slack-jawed and paralyzed in terror - she’d never seen a giant before, much less under the pretense of having to fight one - was interrupted when Rhaea shook her by the shoulder.

“Theodosia! Captain! We’ve gotta get out of here!”

“B-but, the ballista, the post, t-the garrison!” Theodosia stuttered, watching as the other Akritai darted inside the barracks’ stone walls. As if that would hold against such a massive creature.

“It doesn’t matter! There’s nothing here to defend! Give the order to retreat an-” Rhaea was interrupted as the shadow of the giantess fell over them. In only a few seconds, the giantess had closed the seemingly significant gap between herself and the garrison, and now towered over it. Theodosia’s gaze wandered over to the man who first called out the warning, who was now manning the ballista mounted on the tower. He had it trained on the giantess’ throat, but wasn’t making any movements that indicated he intended to fire. Theodosia noticed that his gaze was fixed on the girl sitting on the giantess’ shoulder.

“Can you talk?!” the man cried out, his shaky voice betraying his confusion and fear.

“I can! Hold your fire, please!” the girl responded, raising her hands in a yielding gesture. The giantess, seeing her companion do this, did the same, raising her hands to the sky. Theodosia figured she could level the tower with no more than a few swings from such arms, 

“My name is Sihil, and this here is Teagan. We are just travelers, hungry and tired.” the girl continued, “if you could furnish us with food - as much food as you can spare - we could repay you. Teagan?”

On the girl’s cue, the giantess reached into a deep pocket on the side of her immense backpack and pulled out a tiny (relative to the hand of a giantess) handful of something. She gently deposited the contents of her hand on the ground in front of Theodosia, who didn’t dare to move an inch throughout the whole process.

Theodosia felt greedy excitement overtake her fear as she beheld what the giantess had set in front of them.

Intricately decorated treasures, enough to purchase a small manor, lay scattered at her feet. Golden goblets inlaid with emerald cabochons, silver plates etched with breathtaking artistry, bronze-faced shields painted with Telaphonoi symbols, and countless other treasures of no small value were piled up in a heap at her feet. This was enough to buy all the food in the outpost ten times over.

“C-captain?” Rhaea stammered, staring at the treasure before them, “I don’t think we ought to make her wait for her food.”

This easily went against every bit of instruction Theodosia had been given when it came to dealing with giants. Asander, the man on the ballista, had a clear shot at the unmoving giantess, one that he should have by all rights taken long ago. Of course, she’d never have assumed that a giant would ever try to bargain with her, much less bribe her with the aid of a translator riding on her shoulder, and Theodosia couldn’t imagine that any of the other Akritai had dealt with anything even remotely similar either. That being said, if anyone else found out about this, the treasure would be confiscated, and the most severe punishment would fall on her, given that she was the Captain of the outpost.

Theodosia looked down, took a deep breath, waited for her quickened heart to pace itself as normal, and after that looked back up to Sihil and Teagan.

“That’s not something I can do. I’m sorry, I really am, this is extraordinary, but you’re going to need to look elsewhere for your food. We aren- um, can’t sell food to a giant. No matter the price offered.”

Theodosia could feel the eyes of the other Akritai boring into her back. Even if they split the treasure among their twenty strong garrison, each would walk away with a prize amounting to far more than a year’s wages. She’d have to explain her reasoning to them afterwards if she didn’t want a mutiny on her hands.

Sihil sighed discontentedly and shrugged.

“Well, I can’t say that I didn’t try. You’re honestly lucky I got her to go along with this plan as far as she did.”

“Wait, what?” Theodosia asked, secretly wishing that Asander would just take the shot.

“We could have demanded the food, you know, and the worst part is you probably would have handed it over. We tried to do it nicely, though - ask you, offer ample payment in return, make our neutrality clear - and you would let us starve. We’re taking it all, wheth-”

“Asander, FIRE!” Theodosia shouted, motioning at the giantess with her pike.

Theodosia heard the snapping noise of the massive ballista’s bowstring releasing, sending the iron bolt hurtling at the giantess’ exposed neck.

“There’s nothing I can do to save you now.” the girl on the giantess’ shoulder said, shaking her head pensively, “You’ve gone and killed yourselves.”

Theodosia felt sick with fear. The iron bolt fired by the ballista hovered in the air almost directly in front of the giantess’ neck, surrounded by a faint white aura. The giantess clenched a fist, and the aura faded away, leaving the bolt to drop harmlessly to the ground.

“I’m finding it hard to even feel sorry for you at this point, but even so... this saddens me. I wanted to think that we were not as consumed by blind hate as the giants to see eye to eye. Metaphorically. I hope you know this is on you.” Sihil said, sliding down the giantess’ outstretched arm and onto the palm of her hand. From there, the giantess lowered Sihil to the ground behind her.

Theodosia raised her pike as the giantess’ hand, open wide, swept towards the top of the tower, where Asander was hurriedly reloading the ballista. The rest of the Akritai - save Rhaea, who even now still stood behind Theodosia - were huddled in the outpost, ready to die like cowards. Theodosia was determined to lead by example.

As the giantess smashed the ballista to pieces, Theodosia gave the loudest warcry she could muster and buried her pike in the giantess’ left shin. The giantess yelped and pulled away, but not before Theodosia was able to dislodge her pike from the wound, keeping it from being ripped from her grip. No small amount of blood dripped from the wound, and at the sight of Theodosia landing the first blow, a handful of the other border guards ran out of the outpost, took a loose formation, and attacked. Even Asander, who had fallen from the top of the tower to the ground, had grabbed a sword from the weapon rack and joined in the fight.

Before the giantess even counterattacked, Theodosia knew that it was likely that everyone would die, She ran to the side of Rhaea, who was preparing to fight with everyone else, and leaned close to her ear.

“We’re going to go around. Seize her human friend. Follow me.”

As the fight began, Rhaea and Theodosia sprinted around the giantess, giving her a wide berth, and set their sights on the girl accompanying her, who was sitting on the ground watching the carnage unfold.

Asander, still dizzy from his fall, was the first to die. He missed a swing with his sword, stumbled forwards and fell with the massive weapon’s momentum, and found himself unable to escape as the giantess’ foot descended over him. He didn’t even have time to scream as her titanic weight fell down on him, flattening him into a revolting smear of bloody remains on the sandy soil. Theodosia saw Rhaea stumble and nearly fall as she beheld the man’s horrible death, and pulled her up by the collar of her armor just before she hit the ground.

The two continued to weave through the grass, which was mercifully just tall enough to hide them, but the rest of the border guards were losing heart without their captain to lead them. The giantess was clearly injured and deterred by their heavy pikes, the multiple bloody wounds on her legs attesting well to that, but her legs was all that anyone could reach - without the ballista, there was no way anyone could strike at her vitals. Theodosia heard Rhaea whimper tearfully as another Akrites was snatched up by the giantess, who tore away her armor and dangled her by the legs in front of a mouth so large it could swallow a horse with ease.

“No! Not like this! Please, no, no, no!” she wailed, flailing in the air like a branch in the wind.

There was a faint squelching noise as she was dropped onto the giantess’ tongue, which quickly retracted into her mouth, carrying the terrified guard with it. Rhaea slowed to a stop as she beheld the guard’s arm, still violently flailing and twitching, poke out from between the lips of the giantess, a grim and utterly futile struggle fueled by that primordial instinct for survival.

“Come on! We have to keep moving!” Theodosia fiercely whispered, trying her hardest to block out the slurping noise of the giantess sucking the guard’s arm back into her mouth.

“I… you’re right.” Rhaea responded. The two were now zeroing in on Sihil’s position, but the hardest part was yet to come. The two had to sneak up on the girl and capture her before she could draw the giantess’ attention. Hiding from the giantess was no easy task, but preoccupied with battle as she was, it wasn’t exactly the hardest, either. Theodosia dropped to the ground and began to crawl forth, quickly followed by Rhaea.

The two were able to make good headway as Sihil’s attention was captured by the conflict at hand. One of the guards, an old man by the name of Calmenion, had jabbed his pike in the back of the giantess’ ankle, inflicting an injury so deep that the giantess was brought to a knee. For his courage, the man was pinned down under the giantess’ ankle as she shifted backwards, completely engulfing his body up to his chest. When the giantess evened her weight out, the man’s lower body was ground to shreds. Blood spurted from his mouth as he coughed and gasped for air, his dying moments filled with agony. 

He had not died in vain, however. Sihil, focused intently on the battle at hand, almost disbelieving that Teagan would be threatened even in the slightest amount by such a meager force, was unaware of the two Akritai behind her until it was too late. Sihil gasped for as she was hit in the diaphragm with the heavy haft of a pike, knocking the wind out of her lungs and leaving her sprawled out on the ground.

“Get her attention!” Theodosia shouted, planting a sandaled foot on the girl’s breast and holding a pike to her throat.

“Teagan! Help!” Sihil screamed, immediately seizing the full attention of the giantess, even over the clamor of battle. Upon seeing her accomplice restrained, the giantess’ brow furrowed, and she turned to face Theodosia and Rhaea. She growled something indecipherable, prompting Theodosia to look to Sihil for a translation.

“She… she wants to know what you want from her.” the girl meekly muttered, her haughty confidence gone.

“Tell her that we want to negotiate. We’ll get an army to come apprehend her and you both, and if she moves but a step from that spot, we’ll kill you.”

Sihil dictated this to the giantess, and listened to her response. Theodosia felt her hearts sent as the girl went pale, and instead of translating back to them, shouted something else at the giantess. Theodosia prodded Sihil with her pike, drawing her attention.

“What did she say?”

“She… she doesn’t care what y-you do with me. If you… you kill me, she’ll just kill you back. If you don’t, she’ll just leave.”

Theodosia looked back up to the giantess as she heard a sudden outbreak of screams, and saw that she was grinning wickedly, holding a handful of Akritai squeezed together in one hand. 

“They were the ones hiding in the barracks.” Rhaea breathed, as quietly as she could manage. The giantess said a few more choice words, which where quickly dictated to Theodosia by Sihil.

“S-she says if you let me go, she’ll leave with the cowards, and leave the rest of you. Except… except you two.”

Rhaea and Theodosia exchanged worried glances. It seemed as if they were dead no matter what they did.

“I’m with you to the end… captain.” Rhaea said, tightening her grip on her pike. Theodosia lifted her pike away from Sihil’s neck, but kept her foot down on the girl’s chest.

“Tell her th-” Theodosia began.

She found her words lost to the breeze as a phantom force pulled her and Rhaea into the air, where they hung, suspended by that same power that had stopped the ballista bolt aimed for the giantess’ neck. Theodosia choked up as she realized that she’d failed miserably. She had no power. No strength. No method by which to resist thie fate that awaited her.

Sihil, standing up slowly from where she was pinned down, called out to the two border guards hanging in the air.

“She accepts your surrender!”

Theodosia was helpless as she was pulled into the giantess’ free hand, from wherein she was lowered with horrible delicacy and gentleness into the giantess’ mouth. The damp surface was disgustingly warm, and Theodosia fought with every ounce of strength that she had against the giant woman’s tongue, which threatened to overpower her on its own. To imagine what horrible fate awaited her in the woman’s stomach… Theodosia’s terror manifested as strength, and with a burst of raw power and a shout that left her lungs screaming for air, she managed to force her way back through the giantess’ chapped lips, using her arms to push herself out headfirst. She felt the eyes of all the remaining Akritai on her, knowing well both that they were all watching her struggle and that none were making any more to intervene. Their safety had already been guaranteed - they had no reason to die in vain.

Theodosia, who had been remarkably silent throughout the ordeal, began to scream. She screamed as the vast, sticky tongue she stood upon pulled away, carrying her back into the mouth of the giantess. She screamed as she was inexorably carried down the giantess’ throat, into pitch black darkness from which she was never to return.

Theodosia screamed until she no longer had voice with which to scream, and even when she had neither voice nor mouth nor throat with which to scream, her mind screamed out into the darkness.

No reply came.

~

Laeron was immensely grateful when Firkon gave the order to halt the march; his feet felt as if they were mere steps away from dropping away from his legs, and sweat dripping down from his forehead stung at his eyes. With a huff of breath that burned his lungs as he exhaled it, Laeron dropped to the ground, taking a seat and catching his breath while the other men conversed and dug into their rations. The last few days had been chaotic, confusing, and scary.

“Laeron! Can we talk for a minute?”

Laeron turned around and felt his heart nearly leap into his throat with panic. Volkhard stood behind him, staring at him with an intimidatingly expressionless gaze.

“Oh, uhm, uh, Volkhard! Hello, hello, yes, yes, we can talk. What, um, what’s it that you need from me? If this is ab-”

“When we were talking with Icaria and Firkon, I couldn’t help but notice that you looked nervous. Is there anything you want to tell me? Anything you need to get off your chest?” Volkhard asked, an unfamiliar edge to his normally warm voice.

“Well, there’s… there’s nothing, really. I’m just nervous about finally fighting the giantess, I suppose.” Laeron said, his smile too broad, his speech too quick, his eyes unable to meet Volkhard’s gaze.

“Ah. I can imagine why you’d be nervous, especially after witnessing the way she slaughtered those Selcenians… but we’re better trained and better equipped than them. We can do this, don’t worry. That being said...”

Volkhard rested a hand on Laeron’s shoulder, and felt the young man shirk away from him.

“...I know when someone is lying to me. You wouldn’t lie to me, would you? I’ll just ask again: is there anything else troubling you?”

Laeron trembled under the giant hunter’s gaze, and Volkhard was fairly certain he knew why the young tracker was so confoundedly silent.

“Laeron, if you think I’m going to do anything to you, please relax. I don’t care what it is, I swear that I’m not your enemy. You’re clearly hesitant to tell me something, and, well, I think I might have an idea of what it is. Let’s discuss this rationally, shall we?”

“I saw you. I saw you talk with her and I saw her talking with someone else and you healed her, Volkhard, you healed her! I don’t understand anything, I-”

“So you followed me?” Volkhard asked, curious as to why Laeron would be tailing him.

“Well, I, um… yes? I… I kind of wanted to see her. Again.” 

Volkhard shook his head and repressed the urge to chuckle.

“I could not possibly begin to fathom why you’d want to set eyes on a living, breathing, giant woman that has a penchant for devouring people whole. I don’t think she’d take kindly to the notion that she was being spied on. Unless you intended to end up as her next meal, I’d say that following me was a very, very stupid decision.”

“Maybe it was, but that still doesn’t explain why and how you were able to talk to her, or even what you were saying… gods, Volkhard, to think that the First Emperor himself was wrong about the nature of the giants! I saw the girl with her… she’s clearly somewhat sociable.”

“Sociable? What, do you want to make her acquaintance?” Volkhard joked, sitting down next to Laeron.

“You know, maybe I do! What could possibly go wrong? She saved our damn lives, Volkhard, so I don’t think we ought to repay her by killing her. Yes, I understand that she’s a murderer, but have you ever considered what it might be like for her, living in a world where here own kind have been driven to the point of extinction?” Laeron asked heatedly, surprising Volkhard with both his ideas and the conviction with which he delivered them.

“First of all… yes, Laeron, I have, more than you could EVER imagine. I was alive before their kind collapsed completely, alive to see the last vestiges of their civilization, and I know that they face now. Hell, more than that, I’m a part of what they face. I’ve killed them all, young and old, man and woman, strong and feeble.”

“Well, unless you plan to talk Teagan to death, you surely aren’t killing her from what I can tell.” Laeron retorted, grinding his heel into the sandy earth.

“Oh, don’t you worry, I plan to kill her, and she’s more than aware of that. You, on the other hand… I doubt even the gods know what you intend on doing, given that you’re apparently comfortable enough with her to refer to her by name. You’re a good kid, Laeron, and Teagan is the kindest giant that I’ve met in years - it’s a relative sort of thing - but don’t think for a second that she wouldn’t kill you to preserve her secrecy, even if you came with me. The entire reason she’s been so adept at evading us is that she so often leaves no survivors.”

“Volkhard, I… I know this is going to sound insane to you, but, well, I don’t think you’re in any position to judge me, so here goes; I’m enamored with her. Head over heels, since the moment I first saw her.”

“You’re kidding me.” Volkhard wheezed out a quiet laugh, absolutely unprepared as he was for Laeron’s statement.

“I wish I was, I really do, but I’ve never found love among humankind. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had my fair share of sleeping around, but I’ve never felt the heat of passion that so many others seem to relish, at least, not with any of those I’ve yet spent the night with. But Teagan, she… she’s beautiful, breathtaking, stunning, and somehow, her ruthlessness and strength only adds to that appeal for me.”

“You’re in over your head, Laeron. She could crush you underneath a palm, for pity’s sake! Between the fact that you’d need a translator for every word you speak and the far more problematic issue that you’d have to somehow convince her not to snap you up for a light snack, I think you’re miles out of your league. That being said, if you’re so passionate about the damn thing, I can’t really stop you… I absolutely do think you’re crazy, but I have the feeling that if I don’t let you come with me when I next see her, you’d end up doing it yourself and winding up a bloody stain under some obscene part of her.”

“Not a bad way to go, if I do say so myself.”

“Oh, shut up.”