The gnolls complete their business in Regulbium, getting an unexpected surprise on their way out. Later, an even more unwelcome event awaits them during their travels.

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Chapter 7

Iah hoped that the negotiations from the previous day had gone well. It was hard to tell with this being a new world and everything here being so small. She had not truly grasped how much more numerous everything here must be thanks to their size being so much less resource intensive. For instance, she could tell there were hundreds of soldiers on the walls of Regulbium, and when she had asked Vel, there could have been thousands more in the city. Plus, this legion, all under the command of one person, General Calvinus, probably had other forces scattered around the province.

Supposedly, this legion consisted of somewhere between 13,000 and 14,000 soldiers, and this empire of theirs had around 60 of them. That meant they may have had an army numbering in the hundreds of thousands. Those numbers were staggering, almost too hard to believe, not from a single world. Even the mightiest of nations from her converged world would have struggled to field even 5,000 soldiers. The largest horde in history had not even consisted of 20,000 members. Her clan could afford to sell out the services of 20 of their members, which was generally considered enough to sway most battles. Iah had to wonder if she was being lied to. While the humans were tiny, running into a swarm of 600,000 of them would be worrisome even with their size difference.

There was also the question of whether the actual coinage paid to them was really enough. Five chests filled with gold were given to them, but they were five human-sized chests filled with coins so tiny that no appropriately sized person could handle them. Vel told her that it was more gold than he had seen in his life and that it amounted to a small fortune. So, she would have to trust his word for that. Iah would probably also need him to handle any trade with those coins since she could not grab individual coins without extreme difficulty. She hoped her clan made a good impression on the people of Regulbium because she might need to come back to hire someone to act as her clan’s agent in human lands once they had to part with Vel.

What had happened overnight indicated that she and her clan may have made an even better impression than she thought. She chose to camp as far away from the city as she felt was appropriate. That meant staying close enough to the city to discourage attacks on it from the vermin, but far enough away that they could hopefully detect the humans should they try and sneak up on them at night. Based on what she had seen of Vel, humans were not natural creatures of the night, but she would have been surprised if they could not make due if they had to. Trying to eliminate giant threats while they were asleep would have been the smart thing to do, which was why they all took turns staying on watch through the night.

Indeed, some humans did try to sneak up on them during the night, but they never ventured that close to Iah’s camp. In fact, they all seemed to stop at a certain point before heading back to the city. After a while, Iah thought it was just scouts keeping an eye on them, making sure they did not decide to attack the city in the middle of the night. It did slightly offend her that they did not trust her even though she was about to do a job for them, but she was keeping a watch out because she did not exactly trust them either, so she could not blame them that much.

However, when morning came around and it was time to break camp, Ryrrg went over to the spot where the humans had been stopping through the night. He looked a little puzzled by what he was seeing and signaled for the others to come over. Iah and Hestrihz did not know what they were looking at either. It looked like an effigy of some sort had been set up and there were a lot of other items scattered about it, ranging from coins and other valuables to animals. Iah had Vel staying with Hestihz for the day, so she had her take Vel out and show it to him to see if he could explain what it was.

“It’s a shrine,” he said, “Looks like people have been making offerings and sacrifices.”

“To which of your gods does it belong,” Ryrrg asked, sounding very curious.

Vel looked at Ryrrg as if the gnoll had suddenly been struck stupid, but when he looked at Iah and Histrihz and saw the same puzzled look on their faces, he just shook his head in disbelief, “It’s to you three.”

It was Iah’s turn to be puzzled, “To us?”

“Yes. I would think that would be obvious.”

“But we aren’t gods, Vel,” Hestrihz said while fidgeting uncomfortably, “This verges on blasphemy.”

“You are aware of what you look like to humans, right?”

Iah thought back to something Vel had said before and smiled, “I believe you called me an unstoppable force of nature that could destroy everything in my path.”

“And what do you think most people would consider a god?”

That caused Iah’s smile to vanish, “Vel, I’m not a goddess, just a mercenary that happens to be, uh, a little bigger than you.”

“I’m aware of that,” Vel said hesitantly, “After spending enough time with you, I can tell that you are a person, a really big one, but still a person. But the people in that city don’t know that. To them, you’re some unbelievably big creatures that probably just answered their prayers by killing monsters besieging their city. It would probably have taken the legion months to do safely, if they could have accomplished it at all. And…do you realize the ground shakes when you move.”

“I’ve never noticed that,” Iah said thoughtfully.

“Well, you do,” Vel said flatly, “Your size, your power, and your abilities leave a very divine impression.”

“Can’t say I like that,” Iah said, “We do worship gods of our own, Vel, and trying to impersonate them could result in divine retribution.”

“If you’re considering leaving these offerings behind, please don’t.”

“And why should we take offerings when we aren’t gods,” Ryrrg insisted, sounding as uncomfortable with this treatment as Iah felt herself.

“Think about it, if you reject their offerings, word will spread in Regulbium.”

Iah was thoughtful as she responded, “They’ll think they offended a group of gods, and the entire city will be waiting for us to come back and tear it apart. There could be a panic in the city.”

Hestrihz sighed, “I suppose we could take everything for now and offer it up to our gods later, but you will need to make it clear to other humans that we aren’t gods, Vel.”

“I’ll try, but that’s easier said than done,” Vel replied doubtfully, looking the gnolls up and down as if taking in their full height.

So, they gathered the offerings and then set off to the north, thankfully doing so before any of the humans could get it in their heads to come out of the city and try to worship them in the open. It was not long before they started running into the vermin they had been paid to deal with. They could not hide easily on this world, and all the gnolls were excellent hunters. Between all the ones they had collected the other day, the remains of the group Iah had killed, and the supplies negotiated for from Regulbium, they did not have much extra storage left. So, all the gnolls were pretty much eating everything they killed as they worked. Quite frankly, it was one of the easiest jobs Iah had done since she was a cub doing work around the home.

It was actually a very pleasant day, and she was confident they had managed to clear out all the vermin to the north of the city. That was almost enough to help put them at ease about being worshiped as gods. By the time it was appropriate to settle in for the night again, they were all feeling good about their journey. It was an uneventful night and the next day it was Ryrrg’s turn to care for Vel, who was very enthusiastic about looking after the little human. Since he was one of the better scouts in the clan, that typically left him a bit isolated while out on missions, but Vel was someone he could chat with even while staying ahead of everyone else, and he could be confident that Vel would not give away his presence. Ryrrg was truly happy for the company, no matter how small he may be.

Shortly before noon, Ryrrg returned to Iah and Hes from scouting ahead. While he had been in a good mood before, he looked much more serious now. He obviously had something to report and Iah waited for him to say, “We’ve got someone moving to intercept us.”

“Who?”

“A few hundred from what I saw and armed pretty well. The style looks different from the ones in Regulbium, though.”

“Could they be bandits,” Hes asked.

Ryrrg just shrugged as he began to fish Vel out of his hidden pocket, “We’re going to have to ask Vel about that. However, whoever is commanding them is not used to dealing with someone with a halfway decent sense of smell. And let me tell you, they positively wreaked of fear.”

When Ryrrg had finished extracting Vel, he described the armor to him and asked, “So, who do you think they could be?”

“Sounds like Alkur raiders. They’ve been a constant problem on the frontier. Rumors were that a legion or two would be dispatched to pacify them, come one or two more springs.”

“I wonder if they were on a raiding expedition when they got caught out in the open when the convergence event happened,” Hes wondered aloud.

“Perhaps they’re trying to come to us for help,” said Ryrrg.

“Maybe, but I don’t know for sure. Let’s proceed with caution,” Iah said.

Ryrrg joked, “Afraid some little human raiders might make off with all our stuff. I’d like to see them try and carry off Hes’ mace.”

“Just try to remember that convergence events can be unpredictable. We don’t know what these humans want, which can make them dangerous, even to us,” Iah said.

The others nodded in ascent and Ryrrg tucked Vel away safely in his pocket again. They decided to meet with the humans for now rather than have the group following them around and intercepting them unexpectedly. It did not take that long to find the humans. Ryrrg was right about their scent. The fear wafting off them was so intense that it made Iah’s nose scrunch up. It was so great that she had no trouble guessing at their numbers even though the short trees in the area, even by human standards, did help to hide them.

As when dealing with the humans before, Iah had her companions kneel to try and minimize how intimidating they would be to the humans. Ryrrg took out Vel to act as their negotiator, but Vel did not get out of Ryrrg’s hand this time. Apparently, these really were raiders from a neighboring rival to his people, and Vel was reluctant to venture out into the open with them.

Iah did hear some representative from the humans say something to Vel that she could not understand. Then he responded, “What do you mean you’ve been sent here on a mission?”

More indecipherable words followed. Iah looked forward to when some mage came along and studied the language or languages of this world and came up with some spell that they only needed to use once to allow them all to be understood instead of having to cast a translation spell on each one of them. She already had to cast it twice on Vel because he resisted the first attempt. Casting magic on gifted beings like him was always tricky, even on less gifted beings like she was used to dealing with. She was lucky it had worked at all on Vel. The little human was practically on a different level than her normal targets. Hopefully, that would only take a few months if they had as many as five languages. Then again, there were a lot of humans. Maybe they would have more languages, too, perhaps as many as ten. But Iah chuckled to herself. It would be silly to have that many languages on one world.

There was something that caught her attention and made her smile vanish. Vel sounded worried as he responded to the other humans, “What? No, I can’t go with you. That would be a bad idea.”

Considering that these were raiders, Iah thought it was suspicious that they wanted to rescue Vel. Perhaps it was just a case of humans banding together in the face of adversity. As she looked around, she wondered if that was true. She spotted numerous humans that must have thought they were hiding in the shadows. As hard as it was for her to believe, it appeared humans really could not see the glow given off by gifted individuals like Vel. To her, it was almost like he was a blazing campfire that could be seen from quite a distance away, one that even seemed to light up the day with its radiance. That meant it was lighting up the forest in ways the humans could not perceive, and she could spot some of them perfectly well when they thought they were in hiding.

Several archers were among the humans, and it looked like they were getting ready for a fight. Oddly, they were not paying much attention to Iah or the other gnolls, though. Instead, all their attention appeared to be on Vel. There was something about this that Iah did not like at all. It made her fur stand on end with how her instincts told her there was danger in this situation. She could see that Hes and Ryrrg’s fur was also bristling, confirming that she was not the only one who sensed something was wrong about all this.

Suddenly, many things happened simultaneously as Vel yelped, “Ryrrg, lift me up!” It was hard to tell if Ryrrg was reacting to what Vel said or if he had already sensed an attack was coming due to how swiftly he went into action. His fingers were already curling up around the small figure of the human as the first set of arrows tore through the air towards him. Fortunately, the arrows only hit Ryrrg’s fingers and he did not even seem to react to the impacts. He did not stand up right away and he only lifted his hand but so high above the air. Ryrrg may have been the smallest gnoll present, but he was still a trained mercenary with the instincts of an apex predator that had already been anticipating an attack.

When his instincts told him it was time for a fight or flight, he instantly went with fight. His free hand came down an area where he had seen some of the arrows coming from, swatting around half a dozen humans like pests and reducing them to paste in the blink of an eye. Then he had the thought to stand back up and, hopefully, make sure that Vel was not at such an easy range for their archers to hit. And indeed, the humans seemed to concentrate on Vel more than anything else.

After Ryrrg stood up and held Vel at eye level, the archers did not have as good an angle to keep trying to shoot at him. Arrows were still reaching his hand, but they were harmlessly hitting the back of it. That was when Iah managed to ask, “Why are they attacking you, Vel?”

“They said they were under orders to kill me if I didn’t go with them.”

“Why you?”

“Don’t know. They started shooting before I could ask.”

Iah let out a frustrated growl, ordering Ryrrg, “Alright, put Vel away for now. I want him safe under your armor while we deal with this.”

“Yes, matriarch,” Ryrrg said as he complied with what Iah had commanded.

Iah pondered about just what to do. With Vel now out of their reach, the humans had shifted their attention to the gnolls. Arrows were now peppering their bodies, and other humans were charging at their paws. There were a lot of them, but they were all so tiny. Honestly, there were not enough of them to constitute a serious threat. It was possible that they could just walk away from all this. They would have been able to outpace the humans easily. But she worried what would happen if they managed to sneak up on them when they chose to rest for the night. All it would take was one good archer getting in just the right position to take out Vel. And even if they kept Vel in one of their pockets, the humans were tiny enough that they probably could sneak into the pocket themselves to get him.

No, this threat would have to be dealt with now. So, Iah pulled out her managlass and attempted to cast a paralysis spell on the humans. It would take long enough to wear off that they would be back on their own world before the humans could possibly catch up with them again. However, the moment she cast the spell, she could tell it had failed. It was not the case of it simply being resisted like it had with Vel. No, these humans were under their own magical protection. This was very surprising since, according to Vel, humans should not even know how to use magic. Of course, Vel could have been lying or did not know otherwise. This would require some looking into.

That was for later, though. For now, she still had to deal with the humans. Reluctantly, she turned to her companions, “Crush the humans. I don’t want to risk them finding a way to get to Vel.”

“But crushing, sister,” Hes hissed.

“They’re armed, Hes,” Iah sighed, “The weapons may be small, but I don’t want to risk them still being able to do internal damage if we eat them. Healing spells are among the most mana-intensive spells there are and we need what we have for our cubs.”

“Very well,” Hestrihz and Ryrrg responded. The two of them were disciplined warriors and followed orders as expected. Iah made sure to join in on the effort as well. She already knew the general location of some of the humans and it was simple enough to bring her paws down on them. The trees in the area provided them with little protection, being more like twigs from Iah’s perspective. Her paws were able to reduce them to splinters with ease. As for the humans, she could feel them popping beneath her pads with each step.

Some mere bandits may have enjoyed such work, but this brought Iah no pleasure. It was just a horrible waste of meat and seemed so disrespectful. This just could not be helped on this occasion. The humans needed to be eliminated for the sake of their mission. She just wished that they were a bit larger than they were. Large enough that she could kill them and at least eat them afterward, as was fitting and proper treatment of fallen opponents. But, these humans were getting reduced to red smears that mixed in thoroughly with the dirt beneath her paws. It was unlikely they would be able to recover anything edible.

For their part, the humans were trying to put up a fight. They were bravely charging at her paws and using whatever weapons they had to try and injure her. But it was hard for the humans to do much of anything between her size, the thickness of her hide and fur, and the toughness of her muscles. Quite a few of the humans that managed to stick their weapons into her would only lose their grip on them as they ended up stuck in her paw, rendering them utterly helpless before her paw would quickly come crashing down on them.

Iah found herself wishing that the humans would eventually retreat. Between herself and her comrades, they must have crushed at least a third of their numbers. And with how fearful they had already smelled even before this slaughter had begun, their morale had to be low. However, they just kept coming to get stepped on like pests. Iah could not understand it. Perhaps the humans were more cavalier with losses due to their already enormous numbers. If her clan had suffered a third of its numbers in losses, she would have found that heartbreaking and called for a retreat. And yet they just kept coming.

Some of the humans did try to be clever and tried to scale her. Their size did make them hard to notice, but not impossible if she paid close enough attention. A quick shake of her leg was usually enough to dislodge them. Often, they were sent flying, usually hitting a tree with enough force that they did not get back up again. But she made sure to crush them all the same, to ensure they were dead.

In the end, reducing the raider force to indistinguishable red specks only took a few minutes. It was an easy victory, the most lopsided one Iah had ever won. But she could not enjoy it. This one-sided slaughter that violated all rules of good conduct was all wrong. And she could not figure out why the humans had just thrown their lives away like that. None of Vel’s people had behaved like this in their encounters. Vel himself had certainly not thrown away his life trying to resist her. But these raiders were not Vel’s people. Perhaps they were known for such madness. She doubted that was the case, though, and she planned to ask Vel about all this later.

For now, Iah, Hestrihz, and Ryrrg prowled the area, hunting for any surviving humans. It was possible that some of them had remained hidden, and they could not afford to let such suicidally brave people escape when their target was the much more vulnerable Vel. A thorough search of the area did not reveal any more raiders. It looked like they really had committed all their numbers to their foolish attempt to try and bring down Iah and her companions.

When the gnolls gathered back together, none seemed satisfied with their lopsided victory. Iah sighed, “I know how you are feeling and I feel the same way, but we have to move on. For now, I suggest we find a stream to clean our paws off in. I’ve noticed Vel is a bit more squeamish around blood, like a lot of omnivores. There’s no need to unnecessarily upset him, too.”

They nodded their heads but said nothing. All they felt like doing was moving on in silence, but still on the alert for other enemies. No matter how they felt, they still had a job to do.

******

Vel waited patiently in the darkness of the pocket Ryrrg had placed him in. He had no idea why the Alkur raiders wanted him dead so badly that they were willing to take on a group of titans like that. A bunch of barbarians they may have been, but they were not that stupid, not normally at least. It was easy to tell that Ryrrg must have been stepping on them. The way he was moving was different than when he was scouting. Ryrrg was usually so light on his paws and graceful in his movements compared to the other two gnolls that sometimes Vel could barely tell he was moving. But now, his steps felt considerably more forceful.

All those heavy steps did not jostle him that much, but it was still enough to give him a little shake. Vel knew it had to be far worse for the people on the ground. He tried to ignore the fact that Ryrrg was probably turning multiple people into paste with each of those steps. Those people may have been barbarians, but they were still people, and the fact that they were being snuffed out so easily was somewhat disturbing. There was also the issue of just how many steps there were. Unless he was stepping on people one person at a time, it was like he was making his way through the entire party of raiders.

It did not feel like he was hurrying to pursue them, either. Vel wondered if the raiders were actually charging the gnolls. That seemed like the height of foolishness. He tried to ignore some of the noises he was hearing. Ryrrg was pretty silent as he went about his work, making it easier to hear things even though the noises from the outside world were muffled by the shirt and armor the gnoll was wearing. Most of the time, he just heard trees snapping like twigs as they were crushed beneath the gnoll’s unfathomable weight. Occasionally, Vel heard something else, something that sounded much more wet than trees crunching. Vel tried to pretend it was just his imagination acting up and dismiss the possibility that Ryrrg had just stepped on an especially large group of people.

It did not take long for the gnolls to deal with the attackers, which Vel was eternally grateful for. He did not want to hear those wet, squelching noises for any longer than he had to. Ryrrg’s steps returned to being as light as they had been before and he heard the gnolls discussing something, but it was hard to make out their words. They did not take Vel out of his pocket and he did not try to get them to take him out. Whatever was out there, Vel did not want to see it.

Sometime later, a set of giant fingers reached in to pull Vel out of the pocket. Ryrrg had a gentle touch for a being so large and could get Vel into the center of his palm easily enough. Out in the open, he could smell water and it did not take him long to spot a river of some substantial size. Vel would have needed to find a bridge or a boat to cross it, but it looked like the gnolls had already walked across it. Vel spotted something else, too.

Ryrrg still had various arrow shafts stuck in his fingers. Most of them looked broken like he had tried to take them out before but had not been successful. None of them were drawing blood, though. Comparing the size of the arrows to Ryrrg, they were nothing more than small splinters to him. Any one of those arrows could have killed Vel, but to the gnoll, even the smallest of them, they looked like nothing more than an annoyance. While he was marveling at that sight, one of the gnolls coughed to get his attention.

Vel looked in the direction of the cough and looked up from Ryrrg’s palm into the eye of Iah. There was something sad about the way she looked. A glance at the other gnolls showed they all looked the same. They were also all looking about as sheepish as titans could get. When his gaze settled back on Iah and she was confident she had his attention, she asked, “Is it common for humans to fight to the death in a battle they can’t possibly win, even if their enemy does not want to wipe them out?”

“Not outside of campfire tales, from what I’ve heard.”

“Then why would those raiders throw their lives away against us,” a truly confused Iah asked.

“You killed them all?”

“We had to. Their target was you. I can’t let a threat to you continue to just run around and hope they don’t get some lucky shot off at you,” Iah said with a slight growl to her tone. She was honestly frustrated by this situation, and that surprised Vel.

He raised his hands placatingly before responding, “I’m sorry. That was not meant as an accusation. I just wanted to make sure about the situation.”

“Very well,” Iah huffed, but the anger in her tone was gone, “They practically threw themselves beneath our paws in their attempt to get at you or take us down.”

“That does not sound like the Alkur raiders I’ve heard rumors of,” Vel explained, “I’ve never had experience with them before, but I’ve talked with legionaries before, and they’ve always laughed about how easy it was to get them to flee after bloodying them just a little bit. While they could have just been boasting, I doubt they’d suddenly show that much more courage when facing, well, something like any one of you.”

“What could have possibly motivated them to do such a thing then.”

Vel could only shrug his shoulders, “I don’t have a clue. Fighting until every last one of them is dead, and just to kill me sounds insane.”

“Do you think I’m lying,” Iah asked, her tone slightly hard.

Vel did not like how that sounded, nor did he like how the other gnolls looked at him as they waited for his response, “Not at all. A lot of strangeness has occurred ever since this…convergence event, as you call it, started to happen. This is just another of them, and I don’t blame any of you for it. I’m just surprised you care. We’re practically bugs to you.”

The gnolls all shared a look with each other, and then they looked back at Vel. This time, Ryrrg spoke up, sounding almost sympathetic, “Is this a part of you humans looking down on yourselves again? You aren’t pests to us, Vel. We still think your kind is as deserving of respect as all other thinking beings.”

“That’s true, Vel,” Hestrihz said, “So thoroughly destroying our opponents so that we don’t even have a hope of adding them to our flesh is not right. It’s something only fitting as a punishment for someone who has offered us offense, and they did not do that.”

Iah continued after that, “We derive no pleasure from what happened back there, Vel. It was quite distressing work, truth be told. Do you think we can expect that often here?”

“If you had asked me that yesterday, I would have said even people like those raiders would have begged you to spare their lives rather than fight you,” Vel said, “I just don’t know what to expect anymore.”

Iah thought about that for a moment, then said, “Very well.”

They discussed a few other things with each other, but Vel was not included in that conversation. Left with nothing else to do, he walked over to Ryrrg’s fingers and inspected his arrow-riddled fingers more carefully. He examined one of the shafts and gingerly tried to pull it out, which proved easier than he thought. It had not been able to penetrate that far into his hide. Ryrrg did not even seem to notice at first, so he just kept going until he had nearly cleaned off all the arrows he could reach on one of the fingers. When that happened, Vel was startled when the finger suddenly started flexing and Ryrrg let out what sounded almost like a delighted purr.

Vel found that he had managed to get the giant’s attention as he looked back at Ryyrg’s face to find the gnoll smiling down at him as he said, “Thank you, Vel. Those were really starting to itch. Don’t suppose you’d be willing to take care of the rest? I can’t get a grip on those little arrows myself.”

“Sure, why not,” Vel said with a shrug. Keeping the giants happy still seemed like a good idea. They had just won a battle against a group of raiders so thoroughly that they felt terrible about it. Keeping himself in their favor did not seem like it could hurt. Some of the arrows were harder to pull out than others, depending on how deeply they managed to embed themselves. Some of them were in hard to get to places as well. Ryrrg had to sit on the ground and place his hand down, too, to keep Vel from having to risk a fall. When he finished the gnoll’s hand, Ryrrg practically beamed down at him, but he was surprised when the gnoll said, “That was not quite all of them.”

“I don’t see anymore.”

“My hand wasn’t in range of most of their fighters,” Ryrrg said before motioning towards his paws. The gigantic gnoll looked slightly embarrassed to ask, “If you could handle my paws too, I would be very grateful. I’m not threatening you to do it, though. If you find it humiliating to care for my paws, you don’t have to.”

Vel looked towards Ryrrg’s paws. It was not that he thought taking care of the gnoll’s paw would be humiliating. The fact of the matter was that Ryrrg’s paws were larger than his old house back on his farm. Vel could see even from a distance that they were riddled with various weapons, too. But, after mostly being stuck in a pocket for the better part of a few days, it was a relief to have something to do. So, Vel went to work on the massive paws that had been all the gnoll needed to utterly defeat an entire raiding party. It was not long before Vel had the gnoll emitting an earth-rattling purr that made Vel smile. For a while now, he had been completely helpless to the gnolls, but now he had one of them practically melting under his ministrations. That was not much, but it helped him feel like he had a bit more control over this situation than he had since Iah had first abducted him.

It looked like this had not gone unnoticed by the other gnolls either. He found Iah and Hestrihz crouched down over him before long while he was still working on Ryrrg’s paws. Vel enjoyed both of them looking rather awkward as they crouched there, staring at him. Vel chose to enjoy the situation for a few seconds, pretending not to notice them while he worked. He did not want to push his luck for long, though, and he eventually said, “I’ll do the both of you once I’m done with Ryrrg.”

This response was greeted a bit more enthusiastically than Vel expected as he was scooped up in Iah’s massive hand before he was assaulted in two directions by massive tongues that left him soaked in saliva before being placed back on the ground. It was such a dizzying experience that Vel nearly missed it when Iah and Hes both said, “Thank you, Vel.”

Vel then found himself surrounded by massive paws, each waiting for attention from him and each set larger than the last. The depression of the gnolls from their earlier deeds seemed to have vanished for the moment as they looked forward to having their paws taken care of. It was quite a daunting task, but he was a farmer. The hard work ahead of him felt more right and natural than lazing around in a pocket. And at least this seemed like a way to gain the favor of all the gnolls. Still, it also dawned on him that the paws surrounding him had just crushed hundreds of people not that long ago. Vel could see that the paws were still wet after crossing the river as the fur around them was still matted down. Fortunately, it looked like they had also taken the opportunity to clean off their paws so Vel would not have to see the mess.

The way even the paws towered over him did leave Vel feeling a little humbled. If he had to climb to the top of any of those paws while they were pointed upwards or resting on their sides, he could have easily injured himself if he fell. That was something the gnolls agreed with as well, which was why they moved and shifted around as needed to allow Vel easier access to their paws. It probably did not mean much to them, but to Vel, it was like he was commanding these massive titans. For him, it was a rather nice feeling. Though, he still knew to be cautious. Their toes were the size of boulders, and one wrong twitch on their part could have easily ended Vel’s existence.

However, as dangerous as the gnolls were, for all the power they had, it had all just been directed at protecting him. The gnolls had wiped out an entire party of raiders not because it was a threat to them but because it had been a threat to him. While the end of their journey together was supposed to end in his death, until that point, all the power these titans possessed was aimed at protecting him. All his life, Vel had just been a simple frontier farmer, and now he had more power around him than the Emperor himself. It was all a little much for him and made him feel more special than he thought was healthy. Pulling swords and spears out of their paws helped ground him. The last thing he needed was to get arrogant. If possible, he still wanted to find a way to survive and he would not do that by believing he was more than he was.