BECMI Chapter 291 – Words have Power

The senior Daisho pair for this approach, Eshauna and Jace had been elected to represent Darkmoor when the stone giants had reluctantly called for parley after taking too many losses. Mines were already starting up in the foothills, mortals daring to intrude on the borders of Jotunbrul, and among the giants there was talk of a great war and marching on the realms of humans to the east, a talk that had been going around the clans of frost and fire for many years, pushed by the priests of Surt and Thyr.Unfortunately, there was no charismatic figure to rally around, and the disappearance of Carconadyx, the great Club that signified the favor of their gods, meant that no giant could claim the divine mandate, leaving them reluctant to engage in such a massive effort.

The deaths of so many fire giant champions and clan leaders trying to claim the Club had not helped matters.

“Darkmoor has long been aware that Thyr and Surt call for war against us and our lands, Elder,” Jace said respectfully in the tongue of Jotuns, learning the language mandatory for service in this force. “If such takes place, the Children of Stone will be called on as vassals and mercenaries to aid the Fire and the Frost, and those of the Earth below you would join in for the plunder and the food and the excitement alone.

“We understand you only wish to defend your lands. We would rather start the war here, on the lands of giants, than at home, on our own lands. Here, your children and elders are at risk, not ours. Here, your farms and mines are threatened, not ours. Here, your tunnels and homes are in danger of being destroyed, not ours.

“The Fire and the Frost seek to carry a battle to us. We are instead bringing it to them.”

The elder shaman Okrespur considered those words, absently fingering a necklace made from the teeth of dragons who had threatened his tribe over the years, rash things dealt with by hurled stones pummeling them to a pulp. Their bones and hides were things eagerly traded for by their larger cousins.

“You must pass our lands to fight our cousins,” Okrespur remarked shrewdly. “That does not mean you have to fight us.”

“Our experience with the Jotun is that if we are attacked, we will retaliate in kind,” Jace spoke up, the almost dismissive glance of the shaman correcting itself with the cool death his dark eyes promised. There was a lot of giant blood on the hands of this littlest one, of the many littlest ones who were encroaching on the tribes of Stone. “If we do not show strength, we will be treated as weak. It is not a good thing to seem weak before giants.”

The shaman grumbled in his belly at those words, which were quite true. Giants dominated the weak, it was the way of Stature. Many of their cousins treated the weak as little more than intelligent food or potential slaves, waiting to be gathered or harvested.

“To pass through our lands without contest is a privilege,” he pointed out, testing their response.

“It is a privilege that Clans Feldspur, Phenol, Tocam, and Nephel have been extending to the Frost and Fire clans further to the north.” At the gesture of the golden-haired human female, the dirt and rock between them arose, smoothly forming what the shaman quickly realized was a marvelously detailed aerial overview of the landscape for over a hundred miles around.

Despite his reservations about such magic, he could not help bending forward to look over this map of dust and earth in fascination. Even his guards were craning for a better view. Every mountain peak, every river’s bend, every canyon wall was quite visible and replicated faithfully.

Notably, it extended past Stone territories, up into the higher mountains where the Frost clans lived, and included one of the volcanoes where the Fire clans burrowed deep to tap the earthfires and molten stone of the depths.

The territories of the tribes the golden-maned female named shimmered in off hues, and he was struck by how accurately the outsiders had measured the claims of the clans. They differed by only minor amounts, less than a kilometer in most cases, and had to have been measured merely by observation alone.

Lines of travel lit up in red and white, showing paths taken by Fire and Frost warriors further to the north, moving towards the intruding mines arrayed along the foothills, which numbered at least a dozen.

Of the territorial markers of the scattered and divisive Earth clans out there, tellingly there were none indicated at all...

The Granit clans lived furthest to the south on this map, and the Frost clan warriors further west had traveled beyond them to join up with warbands going out to the north of them, eager for battle and to prove who was the greatest giant warrior.

Words from messengers, drums through the earth, and horns through the skies had carried the tales that such warbands were dying with great frequency to the incoming little ones, with treacherous/cunning stealth and powerful/dastardly magic being used to deadly/dishonorable effect. The mixed messages indicated that the champions of the little ones were incredibly powerful and skilled in called challenges and duels, as well.

Giants respected strength, and the little ones were displaying a great deal of it. They were not, however, gathering in great armies of hundreds or thousands of their kind, attempting to drive a path through the lands of the Jotunbrul and sweep away all the giants before them.

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They were taking on the giants in small numbers, often no more than two on one, and winning!

Dunno if I am winning, but...

As they were doing now. The Stone clans that had rampaged out, intent on driving them off with main force and numbers, were gone now, buried under cavalcades of magic and swarms of steel-armed little ones crawling over and around them. What females and children of those tribes could flee had done so, and on the map, their lands were silent and colored true, not in off-hues.

Much like the lands of their savage Earth cousins.

The shaman Okrespur frowned at the implications before him. Letting the little ones pass would be seen as treachery by their larger cousins. Not joining the fighting could be seen as cowardice and leave them open to future bullying, raids or subjugation by other methods… although those had been tried in the past by the Frost clans, and they had paid for their presumptuousness!

The clans of Stone knew stone, and taking a fight here gave them a great advantage against their cousins of Frost. They were no strangers to fighting and not afraid to come to blows with their larger kin… or pummel them from greater distances with larger stones. When it came to throwing stones, only the mightiest giants of Storm could rival the giants of Stone!

“They are our cousins and kin,” Okrespur replied to that assertion, a logical response. “You are not.”

“That is absolutely correct. We will simply kill you if you get in our way, if you ambush or attack us for passing through, and if you join any counter-attack from Fire or Frost, or gave succor or aid to them,” the littlest one replied coldly.

Such threats from something so small? Was this so he would not take the words seriously, and act as if they were not voiced?

Too many of his kin had died, and without taking proper victories in return of their enemies to not take those words seriously.

A dozen of his kin were waiting just over the slopes nearby, well within throwing range. One volley of boulders would certainly wipe these two little ones from the mountainsides… and what would be the fallout from such an event, when a talk for peace became a thing of blood spoiled?

If such a thing happened, then neither side would trust the word of the other again, and any chance of talking for peace or neutrality would be lost.

He could not help but feel that would be utterly disastrous. The Stone clans had already lost so many young warriors and aggressive chiefs. The little ones were undaunted and kept coming, taking their tolls in blood… clearing a path to the lands of Frost and Fire.

“I would see my people withdraw from this fight. We do not follow Thyr or Surt, and if they care to stir up problems with little ones, that is their business not ours. We have fought to defend our lands, and you have slain our sons and chased our children away… but you have not built in the lands of Stone and sought to claim them,” he noted shrewdly.

“As a general rule, the sons of Stone did not leave the mountains to harass and prey upon the smaller races, save those adventurous fools who thought going with the outer clans on one of their hunts and raids was a fine thing to do, and paid for it. When dealing with smaller races, so many giants forget that we do not respect Stature,” the golden-maned female human informed him coolly.

That they allowed their women to fight so readily was also very different from most Jotun clans, Okrespur noted to himself.

“We have no knowledge of the codes of honor which bind you to your land or distant kin. If you have a plan that will result in less conflict between our peoples, we are willing to hear it. If it prevents us from passing freely through your lands to the west and back, then do not bother to voice it. We will presume you to be allies with Frost and Fire, and will treat you accordingly,” the littlest one stated firmly, speaking with all the bravado of something ten times his height.

Okrespur studied the fearless little ones, and something in their eyes told him that they were determined to carry this through. Whether the clans of Stone fought or not literally did not matter to them. They would continue to come, to kill giants until no giants stood in front of them to kill!

“You do not seek to claim our territory?” he asked them directly, wary of the lies of little ones.

“No. The mines we have set up to the east are merely paying for our expenses in coming here, no more. These lands are too far from Darkmoor to claim for our own. When we leave, the mines will be shut down and sealed behind us,” the female replied instantly. “But we will not leave until the Fire and the Frost are broken, are retreating before us, and their faith in Surt and Thyr is shattered and they threaten us no more.”

Those… were fairly direct words describing a believable motivation… that had nothing to do with Stone.

“A path,” he finally said gravely. “A neutral route along the edge of our territories, where no one clan will claim you impinged on our grounds, and our claims of neutrality in the squabbles of Frost and Fire will still hold true. Hold to this path, and the sons of Stone will not disturb your coming or goings to battle with the followers of Thyr or Surt.”

The sand and dust before him rippled, and seemed to fall up towards him, growing in size and detail, until the whole of the Okre Clan’s valley holdings were laid out before him from east to west.

“Show us this path. Tomorrow, have a guide set in place at the entry to take us along it. We will blaze it and hold to exactly as much of this agreement as you do. I suggest you restrain your more temperamental and heroic youths,” the woman stated firmly.

Okrespur just grunted at the wisdom in that statement. “This is the course,” he said, leaning out with a stick made from the foreleg of a great blue dragon with more ambition than sense, carved and concealing power within it if it needed to be released…