It was much like the time when Jalut first took the outpost.
He crossed the river and came to his brother, watching a dying soul.
Lahmi looked down, his giant feet in the river.
One of the human followers at his feet, gasping for breath.
Dying.
The poor soul couldn't catch air from its broken lungs. They would gasp and nothing would come. A harrowing and a wheeze and a high pitched guttural whoop would follow, again and again.
Their eyes widened, knowing death was coming.
All they could do was scream and point. Scream and point.
Lahmi understood.
He took his blade and sliced it down, beheading the poor fool in the river.
Lahmi then turned.
Gath was a few feet from him, as were some of the other giants.
It was cold, this morning.
The sun was rising without a cloud in the sky, but it hurt. It made the bones hurt.
The mountain tops were covered in snow, and the slight wind took the breath of even the most hardened warrior.
Gath, the wisest and oldest, grunted, leaning on his weapon.
"Was he one of ours?"
Lahmi nodded.
"From The Unknown?"
"I assume so. He kept pointing that way."
Lahmi looked far in the distance.
It could not be seen from here.
Though some who went hunting said they saw a tower of smoke, far away, the direction of the Unknown.
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It cannot be.
"Gath, are the humans that foolish?" Lahmi asked.
Gath's face turned.
"Now you ask me advice? After all these years of threatening me and not heeding my wisdom?!"
"You are showing the very reason we do not listen to you. Would they attack? A full scale attack? In vengeance?"
Gath thought about it briefly.
"I do not know if their king would order a full attack. They don't know how low our numbers are. He might try to send a message, though. For what we did."
Lahmi didn't disagree.
He stared at the outpost.
All of the giants that were with him stood, either on the walls, or the near the massive tower that was the highest point of the wall and Elah.
A few others in the field. Large berserkers who knew nothing but to kill and run.
A whole army could kill them easily. A few soldiers? It would almost be a fair fight.
"I should've called them all. All the giants of the world. All races and classes together, for one last battle!" Lahmi yelled.
"But you didn't. All you have thought about is living in your brother's shadow," Gath spit.
It was true.
Lahmi turned.
Nobody yet. Not the stir of horses or dust.
"I wish we had our beasts. Why did we let them all go," Lahmi said to himself, lamenting the battle cats they had across all of their land at one point.
Lahmi turned to Gath.
"Prepare for an attack. Have what of the homely we have here be the first line," Lahmi said.
Gath nodded, approving of the young giant's plan so far. "Shall I send one of our youngest to check on The Unknown?"
Lahmi shook his head. "If it is gone, it is gone."
Gath nodded again and hustled off to the other giants.
Lahmi listened to the river flow, then looked where, not so long before, his brother called for him and he would not answer.
Lahmi entered his chamber, which at one point was the barracks of the outpost.
He grabbed his tribal weapons. Jagged swords and daggers of much weight and density. At first, he almost grabbed his brother's helmet, but stopped.
Lahmi then went to the tribal armor. The armor of the original giant tribes that the sight of would make humans kill their own.
His headgear was a grotesque mask. It was made of human skulls and limbs they tore about, and some of the extra bones of the giants of past.
Like wearing a massive fence like mask, the box like shape of rotting bones around his head mad him look like a boxed demon or creature from the deep.
He grunted as he put it on, then slowly put the armor of bones on his arms but not his breastplate.
Huge bones of dinosaur like creatures the giants slayed covered his arms in a vile sleeve.
Lahmi took a breath, and tried to listen to the river from his shelter.
Even then, the flow calmed him.