While Toray ran up from the cellar (to join Willek, Michael, and Martin in warding off the rear attack), the Osiri trying to break down the front door of the gatehouse decided to try and gain ingress by another means. Those inside were unaware of this, of course, until Lorraine started growling and barking in the direction of the living room window.
"What?" asked Lucy/Vara (still guarding the equally shrunken Wesley on the fireplace mantle): "What is it, girl?"
This questions was answered by the sound of splintering wood and breaking glass.
"Sandy! They're trying to chop their way in with their swords!!"
"Not if I can help it," muttered the teenage semi-giantess.
Whereupon, she threw herself to her left. Landing on her stomach, she enlarged herself to twenty feet. Moments later, a fist the size of a beer barrel came crashing through the front wall. Catching one of the Osiri full on!
As a result, the latter went flying up into the branches of a tree directly across the road. By the time he fell back to earth, he was dead. And, three more of his stunned brethren soon joined him. Their skulls fractured by the index finger of that hand flicking them away, like flies on a horse's neck!
"Get out of here, you little buggers. Before I really get bitchy!"
Sandy's phrasing might have puzzled them. But, the threat behind it was all too clear. The survivors fled back to their stolen horses.
Meanwhile, back in the kitchen, the Osiri warriors who had broken in through the garage had been whittled down to five. Due, in no small part, to the bottleneck created at the inner door to the kitchen. Not liking the odds, they slowly backed out the way they had entered.
The defenders quickly closed that inner door, and barricaded it further by propping up the kitchen table against it.
"So, let's see," gasped Michael: "We sniped ten from the master bedroom window."
"Plus, another fifteen, here," added Martin.
"And," finished Willek: "I perceive, from Sandy's thoughts, that she has accounted for four more. That leaves thirty-one able-bodied Osiri to deal with. Plus, their shaman and...Malagor."
"Malagor?" chorused the two younger men.
They looked at Toray, who nodded. For it was he, on his previous _scheduled_ visit, who had brought Michael the arguably good news. Specifically; that Malagor was the name of the Osiri who had defiled the corpse of Golar the Younger.
"Well, one thing's for sure," observed Michael (after an awkward pause): "We've lost the element of surprise. And, I don't think they're going to give us a chance to catch our second wind."
"Why don't I just burst through the roof of the gatehouse, and squash them all?" offered Sandy from the living room.
"I would like to save that as a last resort," replied Willek:
"Wait a minute!" exclaimed Martin, with an accompanying finger-snap: "What about...the Sacred Duel of Simbarra?"
"The Sacred Duel of Who?" echoed Sandy.
"It's a trial by combat," explained Little Lucy: "As in; combat to the death!"
tbc
Giantess World
