“Are you proud of yourself?” Milton told Rennard. “From the planning at home, to convincing Lily to help us, to the extent which your jokes went, will you admit fault for once?”

Rennard rubbed his mouth, wearing a stubborn anger. “That’s strange, I thought you were finding it just as funny back there. Definitely looked like it, or you’ve got a good fake laugh. And you agreed that having a giant with us would be better, don’t change your words because it’s easy to rail on me now and look smart.”

Henry got up and wiped his forehead, his breaths more controlled. “We need to move, now. We can’t be out in this clearing, they’ll find us too easily.” Henry picked one of the rucksacks and put it on. “Let’s go.”

“What do we do?” Milton said.

“Right now we should just lay low and wait. Then we try and move south eventually, but we have to go east or west to dodge Trester.” Each of them taking a rucksack, they moved opposite of where Lily had entered the clearing.

“It should be west,” Milton said. “That’s where you find nobles, more towns, and more civilization. East is a wasteland, full of outlaws and clans and whatnot. If you think the highwaymen were bad, try getting surrounded by several giant criminals.”

“Civilization won’t be as welcome as you think either,” Henry said. “What if we’re wanted? They’ll spread the word into the cities, and I’m not interested in experiencing what it’s like to share streets with crowds of giants.”

“Pfft, we’re not wanted,” Rennard said. “It was just a joke. Sure, they got mad, but it’s because of their pride. They wanted to take us in that guardhouse and slap us around a bit then let us go. Imagine if they try to put up posters and descriptions across all of Gintessa regions because we unleashed some farty smells in their rooms. Their superiors would laugh at them.”

Milton raised an eyebrow. “It always sounds so simple and convenient coming from you, and then it’s a heap of trouble.”

“Anyhow,” Henry said, “the plan is that we lay low and head west.” They came under the olhom trees, the diameters of their trunks around thirty feet. The underbrush, bracken and fern and bushes, were like small trees to their size. One of the olhom trees stood with a slight tilt, its western side lifted off the ground and leading into a pocket underneath.

“Should we hide in here?” Milton said. “It might be better to wait things. We won’t outpace them on our legs.” The three agreed. They passed the thick roots and fumbled through the darkness. Rennard turned his forearm into flames, lighting the surroundings. The area was covered in moss and patches of bracken, and they found a spot where they made themselves comfortable.

They waited an hour before they heard the familiar rustling of a giant moving through the underbrush. The three crept near the edge of their hole, remaining in the darkness, and saw the midsection of two giants. Their black shirts and skirts revealed they were from the guardhouse.

“The girl said she dropped them off at an opening. Must have been this one over here.”

“They got Lily?” Milton whispered.

“They can’t have gotten far on their little legs,” one of the soldiers said.

“Aren’t they quick with magic?”

“They can move in quick bursts and be difficult to pin down, but it doesn’t sustain them for long travels.”

“If I were them, the opening under that tree seems like an obvious hiding spot. Check it while I go this way.”

The three exchanged alarmed looks. They scurried to the opposite end of the pit. Through the opening they could see the soldier’s feet kicking towards them and razing the greenery, the iron anklet around the left foot. She fell down on her palms, peeping through the gap, and the three hoped they were in enough darkness.

“Are you hiding in here, you little rats?” she muttered. She stuck a hand inside and brushed through the bracken. “Oh, what’s this?” The three checked with one another. None of them were caught. But when she withdrew her hand she held one of their rucksacks, and a colourful trinket fell out of it. “The magical baubles they used. It’s theirs. Either they rested here and moved on, or they…” Her head fell back down explosively, eyes wide. The arm swept frantically through the darkness, though couldn’t reach the other end. Pulling it back out, this time she stuck in her leg, long enough. Her foot and leg were nowhere near as dextrous as her arm and hand, resulting in a lot of fumbling until her toes skimmed past Milton’s shirt. Milton tore handfuls of moss and put it on his chest when her foot inevitably returned to explore the oddity. She placed the ball of her foot on his chest and rubbed it over him, her toes curiously tugging and feeling the shape of his head.

“Found you.” The toes clamped around him and he tried to squirm his way out. Rennard zapped her foot with a jab of flames, and she winced back with a shriek, toes released. “You little shits.” She tried to stomp them sideways but was in too awkward of a position to put weight into it, resulting in mediocre swats which shuffled them around. She tried to scoop them out, but Rennard scorched her foot with another blast and followed up by summoning a flame circle around her calves, strangulating it with a fiery touch. She screamed and pulled her leg out, rubbing the hurt areas. “Everyone, come here! I’ve found the rats. I need help flushing them out.”

“What do we do?” Milton said.

“Our best chance is—” Henry’s step knocked on something hollow. “Rennard, give me some light here.” With a fireball over his hand, Rennard lit up the area somewhat. They removed a bit of moss and found a trapdoor.

“Now I can see you,” the giant said, bent down with eyes on them.

“Listen,” Rennard said, “I don’t know how far this goes or where it leads, but we’re going through it.”

Henry put a hand on Rennard’s shoulder, his voice low. “Wait, put out your fire so they don’t see us climbing through something.” Rennard threw the fireball out to strike the giant in the shoulder, and she put a hand over it and clenched her teeth.

“I’m gonna thoroughly flay the little fire guy,” she roared. “He’s mine!”

Henry raised his palms, flowing with golden energy, and slapped the trapdoor into splinters. Judging by the sound, the splinters fell quite a distance. There were rungs on one side, and one after the other they climbed into the darkness. The sounds of the giants’ planning around the three boys who weren’t there grew weaker.

“I’m on ground,” Rennard called, bringing the circular flame over his palm. With its gloomy lighting, they walked single-file through the tunnel that was just slightly taller and wider than a person.

“How long do we go?” Milton said. “What if this tunnel is longer than we can last? At what point do we make the decision to return?”

Henry shrugged. “We’ll have to see. It’s too early for that conversation. I’m sure that in an hour or so, they’ll have at least dug their way through or found some way to confirm we’re not under the tree anymore. So going back is possible, eventually. Let’s try our patience here.”

They walked for a few hours and finished the food in Henry’s rucksack, only left with the crackers and oatcakes in Milton’s packings. They finished the water flask, the lack of provisions a problem in need of an answer.

Milton sighed. “What are we doing here? I just wish I were home.” After a few more hours, when they began commenting about a return and hypothesized about what the situation by the tree looked like, they found another set of rungs. They climbed up and opened another trapdoor into a sea of hay.

“Are we in a farm?” Rennard said. All three got out, closed the trapdoor, and shuffled their way out of the haystack. They found themselves inside a giant-sized barn. Looking past the open doors, they saw a great field of waist-high grass and a number of greatox, bovine animals that were larger than human houses.

“Excuse me?” The young woman’s voice came from within the barn. All three looking in, they saw a giant wearing a simple olive gown all the way to the ankles, her yellow-brown hair tied into short pigtails. The young woman was simply massive. She was taller than Lily and the guards they’d seen, boasting a large bosom. She'd be over six foot tall for human proportions, not fat by any means, just sizable. She wasn’t ugly, but not gorgeous either, pretty green eyes and small mouth with two front teeth jutting out.

Milton looked to his friends. “Uhm…”

“You don’t look like one of the workers,” she said, her head sideways in question. Milton noticed the dark mark of a lightning-like ramification on the skin of her neck. She was an offgiant.

The two steps she took towards them made slight tremors in the ground, her feet slightly larger than Lily’s.

“Yeah, we’re not one of the workers,” Milton said, the best response any of the three could bring. All three backed one step as she came even closer.

“Oh, hold on now,” she said, an index finger to her cheek in thought. “A few guards from Humius came here and talked about three young boys they were searching for. This can’t be coincidence.” She read the unease that spread on them. “Don’t worry, I can help you.”

“Really?” Rennard said, his scepticism measured.

“I can help you stay hidden for the time being, and then you can leave after a few days. You’d want that, right?”

“Well, yeah,” Henry said, sharing an impressed look with his friends. “Absolutely.”

“Hmm, ok. Wait here. Don’t leave this barn, and don’t stand near the open doors, so no one sees you. No one else on this farm can know, they’d probably turn you over.”

“Thank you.” Milton bowed. “I don’t know what else to say, this is a lot of kindness, which is welcome.”

A humble smile touched her lips, half-bowing. “No problem. I’ll come right back.” She stepped past them, her gown brushing their heads. For a moment Milton could see her muscular legs like pillars above them, her mighty steps leaving the barn.

Milton laughed. “Well, would you look at that.”

“I’m holding my breath,” Rennard said. “We should be ready to dive back into the hay and into the trapdoor. This sounds too good to be true.”