“This way, girl, we’re almost to the top.”

“This is too risky, pa. We should have come in through the forest, we could still take him by surprise! “

“No more of that, girl. Your plan is fine, but we’re too few. The damned beast will be expecting an attack from the trees.”

“If you’d left me enough time to rally my huntsmen… “

“No use arguing now. Look!”

The hunters could see their prey, illuminated by its colossal bonfire. It rose up before them like a great stony hill. Stretching up into the night sky. A grey fleshed being with bulbous skin. A giant. No, not just any giant, but Uthgar, the king of all the giants! The beasts that had attacked their people as soon as they had landed on the southern shores.

Karn’s warriors had all but driven the monsters from the coasts, and Sul’s people had started to establish cities. Many felt they were secure now. Those willing to join on such dangerous adventures were dwindling daily. Things could not go on this way. As long as their tormentors could organize, they could be driven back into the sea.

To rectify this problem, Karn, leader of the humans who had come out of the south to settle these northern lands, had set out with his eldest daughter, Eir, to slay the king of the giants. While Sul, her sister, was far cleverer in the ways of city folk, Eir was a huntress after their father’s own heart. So when he set out to slay the commander of their foes, he ordered the girl to string her bow and join him.

Now they crouched together in the bushes, a short distance away from the leviathan creature, plotting the best ways in which to destroy the monster for good. They decided to draw his attention by casting a rock into the bushes a short distance away, as he turned, Eir would fire an arrow first into one eye, and then the other. Once their foe was blinded, Karn would rush forth and slay the giant with Ording, his enchanted blade strong enough to pierce the flesh of giants.

They took their positions in the undergrowth. Karn made the sound of an owl’s hoot, his signal to his daughter, and she tossed a small stone. There was a rustling in the bushes as it hit its mark. Then the giant Uthgar turned and cast a giant boulder towards Eir. She let out a frantic yelp. There was a sickening crackling sound as it ripped through the bushes, tearing apart branch and bone, Karn dared not guess at which sounds he was hearing. He knew only that his daughter had been slain.

“Come out, little human!” Uthgar bellowed in a voice like thunder “I know you are still lurking there! I heard you rats creeping in the bushes, and I can still smell you there, even if your companion is dead! Come out I say!”

Karn drew Ording and stepped forth into the clearing. He saw the giant had now risen to its full height, no less than that of two or three men stacked one on top of another, and had hefted up another great stone, no doubt meant for him! No. He could not allow that. He still needed to slay this beast. For his people and for his daughter’s sake. If he fell without taking the giant to death alongside him, then poor Eir had died for nothing.

“I would not do that, if I were you!” Karn said firmly.

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“Oh no?” The giant laughed, a dreadful sound as though boulders were being smashed against each other. “And why should I not exterminate one of the southern vermin who have come to infest my land?”

“For I am no mere human, I am Karn, son of Alaric, King of the Humans who crossed the sea on our great ships! This sword is Ording! I assume you know it well, for it has slain many of your kind!”

The giant let out a terrible roar and hurled the stone. Karn leapt to the side, only barely missing the projectile cast at him.

“Why should I not kill you? You are the one who brought these devils to my land! If I kill you, they shall all crumble, like a beast with its head torn off! When you are dead, I shall take your sword, lead my people south, tear down your cities and drive your people back into the sea!”

Karn turned to face the giant once more, sword at the ready.

“You must know that I have come to do the same thing to you, Uthgar, this sword is more than capable of piercing your great skin! As surely as your stones would break my body!”

The giant let out a low grumble.

“Then why do you waste time on speech, Karn son of Alaric?”

“For the woman you slew was none but my daughter. Slaughtering you with this sword would not satisfy my hunger for revenge.”

“Hah! Is that so? Then what do you suggest?”

“That I cast aside my sword and you your stone. We shall settle this blood feud man to man! With our hands.”

The giant let out another round of bellowing laughter.

“Do you fear to face me in such a fashion?” Karn snapped “Are the stories I have heard about the great giant king lies?”

Uthgar dropped his stone. Karn threw his sword to the ground in turn. Uthgar began advancing upon him.

“I fear nothing, little man!” The giant roared as he snatched Karn between his fingers and squeezed fiercely “Not you, nor your pitiful sword! I shall crush you like this, if that is what you wish!”

He lifted Karn up high into the air, always squeezing. Karn heard another crack as his bones began to break beneath the weight of the giant’s fingers. Pain coursed through his body. With what strength and rage he had left to him, he drove the toe of his hardened boot into the giants left eye. Uthgar let out a horrified roar. Karn followed one blow with another, striking the right eye in turn. The giant dropped him back to the ground.

The force of the monster’s assault had weakened him, but he was driven on by a hunger for vengeance. He snatched up his discarded sword and plunged forward, driving it into Uthgar’s gut. He twisted and pulled, cutting open the giant’s stomach. Foul smelling dark purple blood spilled out onto the ground. Uthgar fell to the ground. Collecting the last of his strength, Karn drove Ording through the giant’s heart. Then he two collapsed. He gazed up at the northern stars as life slipped away from him and he passed on into the next world. There he was joined by his daughter and father and father’s fathers. Sul too, came to them in time.

In the weeks to come, the people spread out from their southern cities, searching for their missing king and his eldest daughter. They found the broken body of Eir first, the bounder having cast her off the edge of the hill. Atop it they found their king. They built a pyre and burnt them there. Many years in the future, when those lands were settled, the great palace of the kings of Eirsmet would stand upon it.

Who would carry Ording, and Karn’s legacy with it, was a matter of some dispute. Sul felt that as Karn’s last living child, she should be the one to hold it. Yet she was no warrior, and her children were not yet old enough to carry a sword. Instead it passed on to Eir’s son, Egil, who would not only wield the sword, but drive the last giants into the mountains. He would lay the foundations of the great northern city named for his mother and rule over the north as the first White Raven King of Eirsmet. In recompense for Ording and lordship over the North, Sul went unchallenged when she claimed Karn’s crown, a circlet of silver decorated with white gems, and lordship over all the South.

Still, she did not forget how she had been robbed of a far greater prize, for the circlet bore no enchantments or legends. It is a wound the kings of Sulheim never forgot.