Within ten minutes all the carts were inside the dwarven outpost and we were riding to the north. Barely keeping ahead of the angry horde of elves behind us. If I had to make an estimate, we were only five minutes ahead of them. Their horses showing their tremendous speed, which was faster than ours.
As we tore down the road, I started to utilize my magic. As best I could while we almost flew by, I made small protrusions of stone stick up. Anything that would slow or cripple the horses of our pursuers. I had Saori create a large amount of water she dropped on the road behind us. Hoping that the mud would slow them down a bit. To help, I created and removed a few protrusions, leaving behind small holes, filled with dirt and water.
To be honest, I was not sure that any of it would work, I just felt I had to try and do something. Otherwise, it would be a complete loss, something I was not prepared to accept. Not because of pride, but because I did not want my troopers to die.
Yathanae had borrowed one of the spyglasses and somehow managed to hold it steady to her eye, while her horse was bouncing ahead at full speed. She flashed me a worried frown when she was done studying the force behind us. “It’s the Ayda herself leading the pursuit.”
I had to wrack my brain for a moment before I recognized the name. There was a hint of worry in my voice when I asked, “Ayda? As in Ayda the Immortal? Chosen of the Wood Queen? That Ayda?”
I got a solemn nod, and my only reaction was, ‘Fuck me. This just went from bad to “Oh shit we’re all going to die”.’
Staying on the road, they would slowly catch up to us, even with all the obstacles I tried to create, they were still slowly gaining on us. Ahead of us, a few kilometres away the road veered east, just as a new forest started.
This forest consisted of some truly large trees. I had never seen such big trees in my life. They easily dwarfed the redwoods of California. They had to be close to two hundred metres tall and at least twenty across. It was truly some humongous trees.
“We’ve to try and lose them in the forest,” I ordered and spurred my horse on, even though it was already going as fast as it could. Nevertheless, I tried to make it go faster.
“Karth, no, we can’t!” Yathanae shouted when she heard my order. “It’s a sacred forest for the fairies and giants!”
“We’ve got no choice,” I shouted back, not caring at all if a dragon lived there. In no time at all, we had to slow down, to make our way through the dense undergrowth. Which of course meant that our lead shrunk to next to nothing, something that one of my men, I am not sure which, kept me informed of the entire time.
Suddenly, his voice changed from panicked to confused, “They stopped.”
“Shit,” I swore thinking it could only mean one thing. “Seek cover!”
Immediately, my troopers reacted seeking behind one of the giant trees. The reign of spells and arrows I feared never came. Looking around, I saw confused faces, except for on the elves and Chione. Axina made a face of pure scorn like she was mocking us. Chione was unreadable.
Yathanae, Ilmadia, Siphanien, and Shenerah all looked around nervously. Not back towards the elven army pursuing us, but at the forest ahead of us. I looked in the same direction but saw nothing of consequence. The only thing out of the ordinary, except for the huge-ass trees, I noticed, was a small tremor in the ground, like a very small earthquake.
“Don’t worry, it’s just a small earthquake,” I said. “I think we need a really big one before one of these trees will fall on us.”
“What are you talking about?” Yathanae asked, clearly confused.
“The tremors, clearly a small earthquake.”
“You idiot,” she spat. “That’s not an earthquake, that’s the guardians sneaking up on us.”
“Guardians?”
“Yes, the giants,” she said as if I was slow.
“I think we would be able to see a giant before they snuck up on us,” I said as the earthquake stopped. Suddenly, the troopers around me started screaming and shouting in fright, starting to pull weapons.
“Oh really, Little One?” a very loud voice boomed from above me.
I looked up, seeing a giant face looking down at me. The face was bigger than me. It looked a bit like a neanderthal were usually portrayed, just much bigger. The fact that the head was as big as me was worrisome, the fact that it was 30 something metres in the air was equally alarming. The most disconcerting thing though, was how the hell the giant had appeared out of nowhere.
Looking around, I saw there was a half score or so surrounding my troopers, all of them having appeared out of nowhere. The shortest one was around twenty metres tall. All of them were carrying clubs that were basically small trees.
“Put down your weapons,” I shouted, my voice sounding a bit shrilly. Hrothgar immediately echoed my order, and after a few repeats, the squad leaders started getting their men under control.
“Thanks, we prefer to not defile our forest with violence,” the giant above me said. He was also the tallest one.
“Eh,” was all I could say. I was out of my depth. Normally I relied on my size to intimidate and bluff my way out of a situation like this. However, when my size was fifteen times smaller than the giant above me, I was lost for words and ideas on how to get out of this jam.
Yathanae stepped forward and spoke up, “Our humblest apologies for overstepping the bounds of propriety when we entered your forest. Our leader is new to these lands and did not know the importance of your sovereignty, nor the taboo of what he ordered us to do. We beseech you to let us leave.”
“Leaving is impossible,” the giant said.
“If you want to fight, I’ll—” I tried to bluster.
“Karth, shut up,” Shenerah hissed at me.
The giant laughed for a moment. “Truly ignorant, this Little One. Do not worry, Little Karth, we will not harm you unless you force us to do so.”
‘Little Karth?’ I raged in my head. Never had I had been called little, in either height or length. Truly infuriating. However, I managed to keep a lid on my anger. “Why can we not leave?”
“The Immortal of the Woods wishes you dead, allowing you to leave would lead to your death. The same as if we had killed you,” the giant said slowly. “So we will bring you to somewhere else where you can leave. However, do not test our patience. Should you harm the sanctity of our home, we will end you.”
Before I could say anything, Yathanae said, “We thank you, Righteous One.”
“Don’t ment—” the giant began.
However, he was interrupted by a loud voice shouting in a language, I did not understand. At least for the first few words. “—a blood debt. He killed a member of our family!”
Looking back, I could see it was the leader of the elven army who was shouting, her voice most likely amplified by someone controlling the wind. It was clearly Ayda the Immortal. Made sense, the idiot at the gate I killed, was apparently a member of her family.
“That is a serious accusation,” the giant above me thundered.
In giant, or whatever the language was, I shouted, “Do not listen to her, she’s lying!”
Immediately, the giant in front of me swung his head back to me. His eyes narrowed, his nostrils flaring, his mouth opened slightly to bare his teeth at me. Somehow I had pissed him off, mightily.
“Did you just tell a lie?” Yathanae groaned.
“No,” I lied, afraid that the giant might also understand human. The giant immediately started growling as well.
“Karth shut the fuck up. This is one of their priests,” Yathanae said. “Their power is to know when someone is lying.”
“But I didn’t give permis—” I started to explain.
“They’re not fideomancer, they can tell the truth from lies, just by hearing them,” she replied with a groan. She then turned to the giant again. “Righteous One, my humblest apologies on behalf of my master, friend, and lover. He’s not from this world, he does not know your customs. Nor the huge taboo he just committed.”
“Twice,” the giant growled.
‘Fuck, why aren’t people warning me before shit like this happens?’ I complained in my mind.
The giant looked at me in contempt. “Do you acknowledge the blood debt?”
“Acknowledge, no, it was the middle of combat, in a war. A siege,” I said. As far as I could tell, none of what I said had any influence on the giant, so I lamely added, “He started it.”
“Did you kill a member of Ayda the Immortal’s family line?”
“I’ve been told so,” I said, and when the giant’s nostrils flared once more, I quickly continued, “To my direct knowledge no, but from what I’ve been told, yes.”
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“You try to confuse us with your words, but it’ll not work,” the giant grumbled. He then roared to the elven army outside. “Blood debt has been acknowledged. Let no blood be spilt except in the Glade of Judgement.”
“Thank you, Mighty One,” was the call back from the elves, who immediately started moving into the forest. Immediately, some more giants appeared out of nowhere. They all had a tiny creature of less than a foot in height, hovering behind them, colourful insect-like wings holding them afloat. A second after they appeared, they vanished again.
“Eh, was I seeing things?” I asked Yathanae as silently as possible.
“No, it was one of their priests. The Wildmother grants them the ability to create illusions that mess with the senses,” she explained. “All of the senses, which was why we didn’t see or hear the giants at all. I should’ve known you would pull a boneheaded move like this.”
“You wound me,” I mock complained. However, she was right. Once again I stood in a situation that could have been prevented if I had put some effort into learning about the different species. However, I had plenty of things to occupy my mind and time, and it was not like I could have predicted we would run into some invisible fairy giant combo.
The newly appeared giants all seemed to be those of lower heights. Only reaching around fifteen metres into the air. They formed a tight ring around the elves who rode into the forest. I was happy to see that it was not the entire army, only around two hundred or so.
“If you would be so kind as to order your men to follow Ismenal,” the giant above me requested in giant, indicating a fairy that appeared in front of our group. I did as I was ordered, because it really was more of an order than a request, even if it was formulated as a request, it was not. Not when he obviously had the upper hand in terms of destructive power and position.
Since there was no other choice that did not lead to a painful death, we followed the fairy, with giants flanking us the entire way. At first, the horses were spooked by the giants, however, Ismenal waved his tiny hand and suddenly they all calmed down.
After five minutes of travelling in utter silence, I finally asked my elven companions, “What’s going to happen?”
“Ayda called a blood debt that you’ve acknowledged, so you’re going to fight in the Glade of Judgement, Milord,” Ilmadia said, strangely calm.
“So a one on one fight to the death? That’s right up my wheelhouse,” I said with a shrug. I was not too worried about a one on one fight unless I was going up against one of those giants. If I had to take them on, I would need a bigger axe.
“Not to the death, if you kill, you’ll be executed by the giants,” Siphanien explained.
“And it’s not going to be one on one,” Shenerah added.
“What do you mean?” I asked with narrowed eyes.
“It’s a blood debt. That means anyone with blood ties to the person you killed, might be eligible to fight you at the same time,” Yathanae explained. “Usually it’s only up and down on the family tree, plus any siblings. However, sometimes it’ll include blood ties one branch removed as well.”
“So what you’re saying is that I’ll be fighting a lot of people on my lonesome?” I asked with dread.
“Yes,” was her short answer.
“Well, the good news is that there’ll not be that many in that army, right?
“Ayda’s personal guards are all her direct descendants. They number between sixteen and forty. Depending on how many she brought with her,” Yathanae said.
“Fuck me,” I muttered under my breath.
“No, I think you lost what little sense you had since I started doing that,” Yathanae quipped with a cheeky smile. “Don’t worry, you’ll not die, even if you lose. The giants and faeries prefer not to kill.”
“Okay, so what are the likely outcomes if I do lose?” I queried.
The giant who seemed to be the leader, who was following leisurely beside us spoke up, “If I know Ayda, she’ll demand that you put a slave collar on yourself, and hand her the control and binding stone.”
“Yeah, that’s just a hard no,” I said immediately.
“The participants in the Glade of Judgement can request anything they want as payment from the loser. The stakes have to be stated beforehand,” the giant said.
“Even if I want her to kill all elves?”
“No deaths, that is the only thing not judged appropriate,” was the booming answer. The way his voice raised, it was clear they felt quite strongly about that subject.
“So if she loses, I can make her become my slave?”
The giant shook his head. “No.”
“But she can demand that I become one, how is that fair?” I asked, okay I was complaining.
The giant scoffed. “Because according to your laws, a lord can be sentenced to servitude. A royal can not be enslaved in her kingdom.”
‘Fuck that shit,’ I grumbled to myself, feeling very much unfairly treated. We continued the rest of the journey in silence. After an hour, the fairy Ismenal suddenly stopped, making the giants and the rest of us stop as well. Why we stopped I did not know. There was nothing of note in front of us, besides us or behind us.
The fairy waved his hand and the air started shimmering all around us. One second we were standing in a forest with giant ass trees, the next we were standing in a humungous clearing, or was it a glade. We were right in the middle of it, it stretched almost two kilometres in every direction. All along the edges of the clearing, I saw giants. Not just giants like I had seen so far. No real giants, some of them had to reach over one hundred metres in height, but it was hard to see because they were sitting down. On chairs made from wood that would put most trees to shame in size.
The giant that had mocked me, stepped forward, “Revered Elders, a blood debt has been called. Tomorrow, the Glade will settle the grievances between Ayda the Immortal of the Wood Elves against Karth the Outworlder of the Forsakers.”
One of the giants rose to his full height, and I had to gape. He was almost as tall as the trees around us. He spat in our general direction, before turning around to walk away. It was like someone dumped a bucket full of water in front of us.
Our giant guide turned back to us. “You humans can rest over there.”
We followed his direction and set up camp for the rest of the day.
----------------------------------------
At a bit before dusk the next day, my men were ordered to join the spectators at the edges of the glade. I found myself standing in the middle, waiting for Ayda and who knew how many other elves. My mind went over the events that had happened since we had arrived.
I had spent most of the evening getting a walkthrough on the etiquette the giants and fairies expected from Yathanae, who had been the one with most contact to these races. Afterwards, I had spent most of my time in intense training with Ethan, trying to expand my capabilities for soul connections once more. I failed.
One disconcerting thing was reported to me by Bendis. Bendis might just be a cook, but he had a good eye, a mind for details, and people tended to overlook him. When delivering my breakfast, he had just stood there. So I finally asked, “Is there something wrong, Bendis?”
“Milord, begging your pardon, it’s not really my place to comment on the comings and goings of a lord, Milord,” he answered a bit hesitantly.
“If I do something wrong, please feel free to come to me. Especially if it could have serious consequences, come and tell me,” I replied.
He shook his head. “You’re doing mostly fine, Milord. Not every day we get to see giants and fairies.”
“I would count that as a good thing.”
“True, Milord,” he replied with a grin.
“So if it’s not my bumbling attempts at interracial diplomacy that has you worried about a lord’s behaviour, then what is?” I asked seriously.
“It’s Lord Anders and his priestess, Milord.”
“What about them?” I asked with narrowed eyes.
“They spent most of the evening hours and the night, with the commander of the elven force they seemed to be having some long discussions.”
“Really?” I was surprised.
“Yes, Milord, they even dragged that older one, Axina, with them to one of the meetings,” he added. My eyes narrowed at that. The two of them had spent a lot of time with Axina but almost no time with Shenerah. I was wondering what they were up to.
Shortly before the duel, I had managed to corner Anders. “What the fuck do you think you’re up to?”
“What do you mean?” he had said, trying to feign ignorance.
I got right up in his face. “One thing is spending a lot of time with one of my prisoners of war, the other is colluding with the enemy. Give me a straight answer.”
“Fine,” he huffed. “I came with you on this foolhardy quest in hopes of running into an elven army I could surrender to. However, you’ve turned out to be just as hard to catch for the elves as the law enforcements back home.”
“Explain,” I demanded.
“Simple, by surrendering I would hope to be taken to someone in command, so I could make a proposal to them,” he had said haughtily. Before I could demand further explanation he went on, “It should come as no surprise to you that I’m not happy about the Thirteen Kingdom’s laws, so I’m planning a rebellion.”
“You’re going to get us both killed,” I said with narrowed eyes.
“Don’t worry Karth, it’s good news for you as well,” he said with a laugh that had a hateful tint to it. “I managed to make a deal with Ayda. Originally she wanted to take you as her slave when you lost. I convinced her that it would be better if you were my slave. Then you could help with the rebellion. With you in the north, me in the south, and a few other allies I’ve made, together with the elves, and we can have the Thirteen Kingdoms become Twelve Kingdoms really quickly.”
“You’re crazy if you think I’m going to be your slave,” I said and was about to deck him. However, it was like the giants could predict violence, because one of them cleared her throat and sent me a baleful stare.
“While you’re a good fighter, I hardly think that you can handle twenty-one highly skilled fighters on your own,” he had said with an irritating laugh and had left.
“Have you tried to find a peaceful solution?” a loud voice suddenly boomed, shaking me out of my reverie. I turned my attention to a very tall giant at close to one hundred metres, who was staring down at us.
“There are no possibilities of peace,” Ayda declared from beside me. While thinking about the event of the last day, she had arrived.
I shrugged. “No attempts made, then again I could always use a new bath girl. I wonder if her royal highness knows how to give a proper message?”
“Shut your filthy mouth,” one of the elven spectators roared.
“Silence,” the giant demanded. “What are the general terms no matter if you win or lose.”
Ayda answered first, “Karth is not allowed to divulge any knowledge of Lord Anders’ rebellion that he has gained here.”
I frowned at that. Yathanae had filled me in. There were some general terms that would stick, win or lose, they could not be too stringent, but there was still a lot of wiggle room. In a case like the one she had made, the giants would occasionally send an emissary to see if I had upheld the terms. If I did not, it resulted in immediate punishment. Which was death. They did not take kindly to oathbreakers.
Together with Shenerah and Yathanae, I had already formulated my general terms. “Ayda will personally escort my remaining men, serfs, and myself to the Final Bastion. She’ll ensure that no hostility against our group is taken until the gate has closed after we’ve entered.”
“Preposterous,” someone shouted. That someone got a lot of hard stares from the giants.
“Conditions upon winning?”
Ayda went first again. “Karth will be outfitted with one of the human’s slave collars and made to serve Lord Anders and his rebellion to the best of his abilities.”
The giant turned to look at me. So I laid out my terms, “If I win, the elves will never conquer the lands held by me or my descendants, nor will they initiate any conflict or grievances, or make others do it on their part.”
“That’s a tall demand,” the giant said thoughtfully. “It’ll bind the elves for eternity.”
“I’ve been told I’m fighting a single man against twenty or more elves, the recompense should be equal to the task at hand,” I said with a shrug. “If not willing, the elf can always surrender now, and only the general terms as laid out will apply.”
She stared at me for the first time. “If you had not made your way to the sacred forest, I would have buried you alive.”
“I seem to attract the crazy chicks,” I mumbled as I stepped away from her.
“Terms have been set,” the giant said. “All who have a direct blood tie with either competitor, step forward.”
I suppressed a groan as I saw around two dozen elves join Ayda. This was going to be an interesting fight, to say the least. If not an impossible one.