Ultimately, the sacking of the dwarven weapons cache had been a greater success and a bigger failure than he could have hoped for. On the one hand, Jon had managed to capture the entire building without losing a single man thanks to the carelessness of the guards and the overconfidence that the dwarves placed in their brands, but on the other? Well, they didn’t come away with much value for all the risk they’d taken to breach this remote weapons depot.

The last time he’d been here, this warehouse had been full of exotic weapons, and even though he’d learned a little from the guard that he’d actually gotten to talk and a little more from the signs he’d read and the documents he’d looked though, it was enough to show him just how much the dwarves had hidden from the eyes of men. Even years later, he still remembered walking into the giant room loaded with exotic, almost magical weapons like it had been Arvoz’s own armory.

As long as he’d spent in the deeps with the dwarves, he shouldn’t have been capable of feeling such overwhelming surprise. Even so, he’d been blown away, both by the designs of the sleek metallic shapes that had promised death and the sheer amount of fire that he could feel stored in their ammunition. There had been brands of every description, including those that were larger than he was, had been here at the time. In addition, there was all the ammunition you could have ever wanted for each of the devastating weapons.

While Jon had his men load some of the remaining shells and take the few arms and barrels of powder that they could actually use, he explained to his lieutenants what it was that was still left while he studiously ignored the giants that were in the center of the room. The mechanical monsters were so large that even in the darkened room, the pair of them could really only be ignored on purpose. When men stood near them with torches, their meticulously polished surfaces gleamed, and when they stood farther away, they were a wall of shadows that eclipsed just enough of the room that you could see the outline of their menace in the dark.

“They actually had even bigger cannons than this if you can believe it,” he said, gesturing to one of the smaller weapons labeled a ‘two stone field piece.’ It would take at least two mules to get it aboard the train, and they had only a couple of dozen bags of shot for it, but he could see how they could get up to some mischief which such a specialized weapon. “They called them artillery, and they had other ones that pointed almost straight up. Those they labeled mortars, but—”

“Why would you want to shoot something straight up?” Rian asked, “Wouldn’t that just fall back down on you?”

“I think they were meant for signaling,” Jon answered. It was improvisation, of course. In reality, he had no idea what half of the things in this room did, but the last thing he could afford was to appear ignorant in the ways of dwarven magic in front of his men. Like so many other things, they relied on him for this. “You know - for launching giant flares, so the whole army knows where to maneuver next.”

The conversation went on like that for some time as he explained that a smokeorgan was made up of at least a dozen brands and how the dwarves had made bombs called grenades that were meant to be thrown. Both of them were absent, of course, now, but they had left behind whole crates of logistical gear like butt stocks and ramrods. There was even a crate of powder flasks that he thought he might be able to repurpose as his own sort of grenades with a little effort.

Yes, all in all, this was still a great boon. Even if they couldn’t get the wonder weapons he’d hoped for, they would still be able to load up on canned foods, spare parts, and black powder. He used these thousand small items to buy time as men waited anxiously for him to explain the giant dwarves that stood motionless in the middle of the room.

Finally, when he could delay it no longer, he gestured broadly to the machines as sunrise threatened the horizon and said, “You’ve all heard the legends of the frost-bearded giants that live high in the mountains and devour the unwary. Some of you may have even heard that they will occasionally wipe out a whole village and devour everyone in it, but what no man alive knew until today is this: those giants were not real creatures like goblins or trolls. No matter how you try to wound them, they will never bleed, for they are creations of the dwarves.”

This drew gasps and a few outcries, but none of the assembled men disputed it. Why would they? The evidence was right in front of them. Giants were no longer a myth. Instead, they stood in front of them as a particularly heavy and unavoidable truth at three times the height of the man.

Secretly Jon was relieved that they’d just taken his word for it. Some of what he said was definitely true, and most of it was probably true, but he wasn’t entirely certain that flesh and blood giants were storybook creatures. It was entirely possible that the dwarves had built these machines for the same reason they’d built all their machines: to deal with a very specific challenge. In this case, that could have been actual giants, but from the clues he’d pieced together, he was fairly sure that in addition to scaring the humans at key moments, they existed for some sort of ceremonial purpose because of the notes referring to some of the rules regarding honorable combat that had been present in the maintenance manual he’d found.

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Jon went on to explain all the ways it was like a train engine and talked about how the small area in the chest, behind the breastplate, was similar to the conductor’s cabin as he pointed to various wheels and levers. That was true to a degree, of course, but he didn’t know what half of the controls did, and worse, the compartment was just a little too small for him to conceivably fit in so that he could mess around with things and start to get a feel for the weapon. He didn’t think that he’d be able to fit it into his plan for the next battlefield, of course, unless the opposing forces simply refused to take the bait, and if that was the case, then—

“But if we got no dwarves, then who are we going to get to fit in there?” Cristoph asked out of the blue. “We’d be foolish not to steal these for ourselves, of course, but it’s not like any dwarves are going to side with us, so we’d need to recruit some kids or something, wouldn’t we?”

“Our friend makes a good point,” he said, acknowledging and praising the man even as he recognized his chance to get rid of him for a few hours before he could sour the mood. “Why don’t you go through the men, find all the shortest recruits we have, and in the morning, we’ll see if we have a few people tiny enough to wake these sleeping giants. Though that will only be after we get some shut-eye ourselves, of course.”

There were a few chuckles at his joke, but there were scattered yawns, too, as exhaustion finally began to exceed the excitement of what they’d found for so many of his men. That suited Jon just as well. It just gave him more time to think all of this over.

So, after a few preparations, they threw the switch to protect their train from unexpected traffic, stationed watches inside and outside the compound, and then when everyone else had gone away, he spent several minutes just staring at the giants. They were more complex and beautiful than any of the locomotives he’d ever helped the dwarves disassemble in the rail yard, but even as intimidating as they were, there were a thousand subtle clues about how they worked thanks to the dwarven need to make choices that were both ornate and practical. The very first thing he noticed was that despite the many differences, they had both been made by or for the same clan. Both the heraldry of its crossed hammers and the clan name, Kegan, were very prominent on both of the giants.

The boiler and the coal compartment were accessed from the rear, lending the whole thing a slightly hunched look. Jon assumed that was for balance and a desire to separate the pilot of the mechanical monstrosity from the worst of the heat, but he couldn’t say for sure. The exhaust had been rerouted to come out the mouth and the eyes of the thing. He was sure that it would be very intimidating if you crossed paths with it in the middle of the night. After all, the only thing worse than a real-life giant was one with fire in its eyes that belched smoke. Jon could definitely see how that much steam turning to frost would quickly cause the chain beard that the brass giant was decorated with to take on all the traits he remembered from the fairy stories.

However, even past all those details, there were other things. There seemed to be nearly a smokeorgan worth of brands built into the thing’s chest, and there was a ladder carved into the right leg and torso that was built to blend into the boots and pants of the giant in a way that would be hard to notice if you weren’t looking for it. Then there were the train wheels.

Jon didn’t immediately understand how the thing folded over, but the fact that the feet and wrists had wheels surely meant that there was a way for the things to crouch down and hook them to a train. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be there. Jon was fairly certain that even if he could figure out how to attach both of them to their already overloaded locomotive, it would be impossible to tow that much weight, but even one of them would make for a mighty psychological weapon if they could figure out how to make it walk.

He nodded to himself as he considered the possibilities, and then with one last look, Jon left the building behind and headed for bed himself. On his way back to his tent by the light of false dawn, he checked in on the knots of men that were still awake to hear their impressions as much as boost morale. Some of them were worried that the dwarves might have a tunnel entrance that led below, but Jon wasn’t the least bit worried about that.

“The deeps are an awful big place,” he assured them. “There aren’t any footpaths that lead to the surface. If they had a way down here, it would be in the form of a railbed.”

That line of logic mollified them enough that a few minutes later, he was laying beside his beloved and explaining to her everything that had happened that evening.

“So you’re saying this was pointless then?” she asked when he was done. There wasn’t any anger or resentment in her question. She was just clarifying things, and sometimes that was exactly what he needed.

“No - I just wish there’d been more here,” he said, holding her tighter.

“Well, more things worth stealing would have likely meant more guards, Jon,” she whispered. “Maybe you should count yourself lucky.”

“Maybe,” he agreed. Secretly he hoped that the lack of arms here meant they were being deployed on a battlefield against them sooner rather than later, but he didn’t want to worry her, so he stayed silent about that. “But if we can find one of the younger guys to fit, we’ll have a giant as a mascot - that will really put the fear into our enemies, don’t you think?”

“You know, there are women in this little revolution too, darling; maybe one of them will be the right fit,” Elise answered.

“Yeah, like - five of them, including you.” Jon joked. Her tone made him worry that she was going to volunteer, but fortunately, she was probably a couple inches too tall. She didn’t do any such thing, though. Instead, the silence lingered, and finally, he fell asleep holding her while his mind raced with thoughts about all the things they would have to do to ensure their victory in the coming days.