The group reassembled quickly outside the sack of berries, finding themselves on a rough wooden bench twenty feet high. They were in what must’ve been the thundress’s home: an impossibly large chamber of stone brick with a hearth for a fire, a field of soft material on the slab floor for a bed and piles of sacks and boxes all around. A metal cage sat down near the hearth, sealed with a simple latch on top, and a couple of people sat sullenly inside. That must’ve been where she took her snack from.
Arabel stared at the cage with concern, ready to take a step towards them, but Grawn caught her forearm and pulled her the other way. He said, “We can’t save all the prisoners. Not until we’ve saved the most important one.”
Reluctantly, Arabel pulled her attention away from the trapped people and followed him. Harper was already at the edge of the bench, securing a rope and grapple. She tested it, then nodded to Grawn to go first. He did so with surprising grace for a man in armour, sliding down to the ground, then Arabel clumsily followed. She landed with a stagger. Caracae floated down, rather than climbed, and Arabel saw now that she did it with hands aimed down, as though pushing against the ground itself. Harper came last and gave the rope some special tug that released the grapple; a curious thief’s trick that Arabel became instantly eager to learn.
They hurried to the exit while Harper spooled up the rope again. A suitably enormous doorway looked out, down a handful of ten-foot stone steps, to the heart of the Thundress Tribe. They were in an elevated spot, looking out over a handful of feasting tables under wooden shelters, a volcano-like kiln to one side and a ringed area to the other – some kind of fighting pit. It was all enclosed by stone huts – or what would be huts for the giantesses, each only big enough for a bed and fire, but by human standards more vast than the finest Burgwec temples. The scale was emphasised by the presence of various crates and cages like the one in the room they had just left – a handful stacked near the tables, one or two near hut entrances. They held varying numbers of people, some empty and others packed to bursting.
Arabel took off her glasses and gave them a quick polish on her shirt, to be sure she could see properly ahead.
There were leather-clad giants dotted through the camp; two sat at a central table hunched over a game of some sort, while another stoked a fire by the kiln and one more leaned against a distant wall, smoking on a pipe. The one who had carried them, Arabel saw, was at the top of a winding set of steps to their left, which led to a tower. The entrance had an enormous animal’s skull above it as a sign of importance, surely some form of dragon, and the giantess was talking to a lady in the entrance who exuded authority. She was tall, even for one of them, with a panelled leather top almost long enough to constitute a dress, tied and the waist with a thick rope belt that pulled the material tighter over her ample chest. Her long hair was braided on one side and loose on the other, draped over a shoulder, a brilliant auburn colour that caught the light, and she wore a gold chain around her neck. The fruit-gathering thundress gave some kind of report. The other lady patted her cheek, giving her an okay, and the woman rose again. They went inside together.
It strained Arabel’s neck to look up the height of the tower. Though it was only two storeys by the giants’ standards, Arabel was sure the upper window sat higher than any tower in the Clear Valley. She voiced an uncomfortable conclusion out loud, “I’m pretty sure that’s their leader’s home. If they’ve got the princess, that’ll be where she is.”
“Somewhere up top, you think?” Eko said, following Arabel’s gaze.
Harper snorted, standing alongside them, as the thief noticed the monster hunter poking out of Arabel’s top. “You two got familiar in that bag of fruit, huh?”
Arabel finally lifted Eko out from her cleavage, with a careful thumb and forefinger, as the huntress scowled at the thief. Arabel placed her back on her shoulder and said, “There are windows up there, we could get in unseen.”
“That’s as high as a mountain,” Grawn said.
“True, but we’ve hardly got a choice,” Eko said. “At least the camp’s relatively empty right now. We can’t wait.”
Arabel turned to Caracae. “You can lift us up there. Use your power.”
Caracae raised an eyebrow as though surprised anything should be asked of her. “I can’t fly, Arabel, it’s a trick for small distances.”
“Well, I can see small distances from here,” Arabel said. “Each brick in that wall is no taller than the bench you just jumped off. We can do one at a time.”
“I shrank a giant yesterday, Arabel. I’m already low on reserves. Without more energy, I’d be drained before we reach the top.”
“So let’s get you more energy?” Grawn suggested, apparently not having registered everyone’s prior concerns about the witch.
Harper said, “She’s talking about eating people, Grawn. She can recharge by swallowing someone.” Grawn grunted disapproval but the thief went on. “Then, there’s plenty of people here waiting to be dinner. Couldn’t you, you know . . .”
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As the others fixed on the thief in shock, Caracae shook her head. “I certainly don’t have the energy for that. It’s one of the great ironies of the palm witch, I’m afraid, that we cannot generate food at the times we most need to eat.”
“I guess we set up camp then,” Eko said, “seeing as I’m the only person small enough to accommodate you, and I would just as soon cut your stomach open.”
“I wouldn’t have dreamed of suggesting it,” Caracae replied in a silky voice that begged not to be trusted.
But Arabel lit on an idea. She caught herself before saying it out loud. Caracae might have emergency supplies. Was that thug from the tavern still in her pouch? To suggest it, though, would be to condemn him to death for the sake of their convenience. Still, Arabel’s eye went down to Caracae’s pouch at her hip, trying to see if it was still moving.
“Oh,” Caracae said, catching Arabel looking. The witch opened the pouch and probed a finger in; a small, panicked noise came out. “I forgot about him.”
“Who?” Grawn asked with concern.
“Are you walking around with live mice to fuel you, witch?” Eko said.
Caracae showed her white teeth in a grin. “Rodents are no use to me.”
The huntress went quiet as the realisation swept over the group. Harper tried to laugh it off, with a curse that betrayed her nervousness.
“I was saving this one for a crisis,” Caracae said. “But I suppose it’s really up to our captain here. What do you think would be best?”
Arabel refused to meet her gaze, checking the camp for other ways through. She didn’t want to engage with the witch, well aware now that Caracae delighted in involving her in her sadistic ways. Maybe it actually gave her more power, somehow, to have a good person like Arabel party to her terrible deeds.
But they could cross the camp easily enough; off the side of the steps, the slopes weren’t too steep, and if they got behind the next building, they could keep moving behind the huts without being seen. With so many caged people, and the scent from the central fire, it was unlikely another thundress would smell them here. The problem wasn’t getting to the tower, though – it was getting up it. Inside, there would be more steps like this, and though they might be able to climb them it would take far too long. A thundress could come wandering up at any time and they’d be stranded. Perhaps they could grapple up the exterior wall, one brick at a time. It would take forever and leave them all exhausted, but it was an option.
Arabel frowned at Caracae and said, “There has to be alternatives. If not another way for you to gain energy, then another route for us to take.”
“I can rest,” the witch shrugged, pretending at being helpful. “If you want to wait.”
“Why do you have to swallow anyone?” Arabel thought out loud, old training jumping to mind. “I understand a little of body-works. You eat people alive for the same reason thundresses do – to take the most energy from them. Living energy is more powerful than dead, after all. So you don’t have to kill anyone.”
“You do not want to see me regurgitate a half-digested person,” Caracae warned.
“No. But food is partly digested in the mouth, isn’t it?”
“Are you suggesting I suck on someone?” Carace arched an eyebrow with amusement.
“Is it that crazy? Witches must’ve practised different methods at some point.”
“Yes, and for the energy I need, that’s no good.”
As Arabel fought for another solution, a cheer drew her eyes to the table where the two giant women were playing their game. One was laughing triumphantly as she slapped down a card bigger than a door, making the table rattle. She was an especially large, brutish woman with metal hoops in her nose, and as she leaned over the table goading her companion even the other giantess looked intimidated by her presence.
Her slighter opponent grumbled disappointment and reached into a bag on the bench on her other side. She brought a fist up with a person struggling between her fingers and held it out; the bigger giantess had her own hand palm up, fingers snapping greedily open and closed. The loser dropped the person into the hand and the enormous woman immediately snatched the person back to her. As she shovelled the poor victim into her mouth, she held out her other hand, clicking her fingers for more. Her opponent regarded her angrily, but reached down again. She lifted out another man, dangling from her fingers by the leg, and as she dropped him into the waiting monster’s hand she picked up a third, this one thrashing about particularly violently. A naked woman. The victor grabbed a person in each hand and laughed throatily, rattling cups on the table. At this distance, her victims’ pleading and screams were just audible as she jammed them into her mouth together. They didn’t quite fit, with struggling limbs reaching desperately out of her lips as the giantess rose from her seat, shaking her hips to rub in the victory. The other thundress looked irritably away as the monster shook her body about, laughing and spitting around the people trapped in her jaws, then she thumped back into her seat. She chewed to rearrange her mouthful, pulling the struggling mass of limbs between her lips, and slowly, meanly devoured her prize.
“Shit,” Harper exhaled. “I’m for moving up that tower the quickest possible way.”
“Who, er, exactly, is the –” Grawn said, faltering over asking the details of Caracae’s captive.
“To hell with it,” Eko said, barely audible. “If Caracae already has someone trapped, let’s not pretend we’re saving them. Better we at least put her to some use.”
So everyone was on board. That didn’t make it easier to confirm the decision. Arabel took a breath and said, “Let’s get to the tower, first. We can decide there. If a better option doesn’t come up.”
They grumbled agreement and readied their packs, giving the gambling thundress one last disgusted look. The loser was laying out cards again, ready to start another round, as the bigger one picked at her teeth. Arabel considered, as they set out, how badly it had chewed up those people. Just enough so they’d slide down its gullet, or until they were pulp? She didn’t exactly want to know the answer, but it was curious. What percentage of thundresses really stuck to swallowing their prey alive? It was an academic question, she told herself, and as such not absolutely horrifying. A better thing to focus on, anyway, than the fact that she was well aware they would find no better options before they reached the tower. A similar cruel fate awaited the man in Caracae’s pouch.