The first sound was a horn.
A deep, low groan that rolled over the field and shivered through the bones of everyone standing on it. Then another. Then three more, layered like thunder breaking through the morning mist.
The giants began to move.
Their steps were slow at first, heavy, deliberate, shaking the ground in patient rhythm. Across the field, their lines stretched wide, spread evenly, each massive shape claiming its own space.
Beside Argent, Grey grinned through his beard, eyes bright with something that wasn't quite madness but wasn't far off either.
"You see them, lad? The giants sing the best song there is. The song of honor."
Argent glanced at him. "Honor?"
"Aye. They fight to learn, to test, to grow. That's why they spread out like that, each one looking for their own lesson. No stealing kills, no mobbing. Every strike, every scar, earned." He chuckled, eyes flicking toward the nearest group of humans.
"Wish more of us were built like that."
Across the field, horns called again. This time from the human side. The sound was higher, thinner, warped by wood and desperation.
And then they began to move too.
Dozens of groups stepping forward. Some walking. Some already running. The organized chaos of survival.
Argent watched the Hollow Crown recruiter lean lazily against a tree at the edge of the woods, arms crossed, smirking while his five fresh recruits sprinted full speed toward the giants. Their armor gleamed too brightly. Their spears and swords shook in unsteady hands.
Not courage, Argent thought. Just need overcoming reason.
As the five of them got closer to the first giant they could find, they hesitated.
Barely more than kids, two men and three women, got closer together as they neared a giant with skin like stone and a mace that looked as large as a fallen tree.
"Go on," one said, voice cracking. "We've got this. Just hit him first."
Another laughed nervously. "Right. Just like the recruiter said, one hit for a meal, two hits for a week."
The one with the shield, Chris, swallowed hard. "We don't need to kill it. Just.....just wound it. Easy merits."
The giant looked down at them, curious. Its shimmering blue eyes flickered, the mace resting across its shoulder.
"Hey! You big ugly bastard!" one of them shouted, trying for bravado and failing. "Come on!"
The giant obliged.
It swung the mace downward with a sound like a building collapsing. Chris raised his shield, fresh wood, polished metal rim, and braced.
The blow hit.
The shield held, impossibly, but the force ripped Chris from the ground, flinging him backward through the air like a tossed doll.
Two of the others lunged in, screaming, spears flashing. One skittered harmlessly off the giant's rocky skin. The other bit just deep enough to draw a slow trickle of blood.
The giant didn't even flinch.
It turned its torso with the motion of its swing, backhanding the two with the same mace. They vanished into the dirt and didn't rise again.
The last two froze.
One whispered, "We need to keep fighting, he'll kill us if we don't."
The other's voice broke. "We need to live first. Just one day. I don't want to die two days in a row."
"Where's Chris?"
They turned, and one of them screamed.
Chris was twenty yards back, impaled through the chest on a jagged, splintered tree that jutted from the ground. The shield was still strapped to his arm.
The giant rested its mace on its shoulder again and waited.
The two remaining looked at each other, then ran, full sprint, back toward the woods not even looking back as they went.
From his place under the tree, the recruiter smiled, watching them go. "Not bad for a first day," he murmured. "And I earn merits just for bringing them here." He stretched, adjusted his coat, as he faded back into the woods, the mist taking him as he walked leisurely back toward town.
Argent watched it all unfold, jaw tight. Around him, the field had erupted into chaos shouts, steel, the thundering rhythm of battle.
But his eyes stayed fixed on that one giant, still standing where it began, not chasing, not striking again. Just waiting.
Honor, Grey had said. They fight to grow.
Argent thought back to their first day, the ambush, the slaughter, the sudden fury of that arrival. At the time, it had felt like cruelty. Like they'd been thrown into a pit to die.
Now he saw the shape of it differently.
A lesson. A welcome.
The giants hadn't attacked to destroy. They'd attacked to show them what this world was.
To make sure none forgot the cost of standing still.
A strange calm settled over him as the thought formed.
These giants aren't merciful, but they are honest.
On the far left, Veyra's voice cut through the noise.
"Well, that one's ours."
Her twin smiled grimly. "Let's go, sister."
"Right behind you, brother."
The two of them ran straight toward the same giant that had just crushed the Hollow Crown recruits.
The giant's head turned at the sound of their footsteps. Its eyes brightened, and for the first time, it roared, a deep, rising call of challenge that sent birds scattering from the trees.
It had seen the the twins charge, seen the two small figures rushing forward despite having witnessed its strength in the fight before.
In that defiance, it recognized something.To the giants, courage was honor, and every fearless step an offering to their gods.And so the giant raised its mace in kind, an answering honor with honor.
Veyra and Veryn didn't slow.
As they reached striking distance, the mace came down again like quick like thunder.
Veryn braced his kite shield, legs set wide. He didn't try to take the blow, just catch and turn it. The impact rang through him like a bell, but he managed to pushthe head of the mace aside, sliding it past his shoulder.
His sword flashed, cutting low across the giant's wrist. The steel wasn't sharp enough, the edge not strong enough, but it bit just deep enough to draw blood.
The giant hissed, its grip faltering just a little.
Veyra slid in from the right, fast and fluid, her blades carving four shallow gashes along the giant's thigh.
The giant twisted, roaring again, swinging the mace sideways to drive her off.
"Don't forget about me," Veryn growled, shoving forward and slamming the flat edge of his shield into the giant's exposed side.
The blow landed hard. The giant grunted, pain flashing across its face.
Veyra ducked beneath the returning swing, rolling to the side as the mace tore a crater into the earth where she'd been. Veryn's strike giving her enough time to move. Dirt and smoke billowed.
The giant's wrist slipped; its weapon fell, crashing where it had hit.
The giant turned, looming over Veryn, massive hand curling into a fist. Cracking its neck while staring at him. Its voice came low, broken, the human tongue twisted but clear enough.
"You… want attention? You have it."
The fist came down.
Veryn raised his shield too block the force coming down on him. It was too late before he noticed that the giant slowed, changing the motion, and grabbed instead, it's large fingers closing around the rim of his shield.
The shield didn't fall from Veryn's hands. It couldn't.
Because Veryn had lashed it to his arm. He was too injured, too sore to carry it normally.
The giant pulled him close like a toy. And pummeled him with it's other fist, once, then twice.
"Brother!," Verya shouted.
"Finish it," he grunted back, blood already in his teeth. "Don't, don't waste this moment."
"The stage is set, it is your time to fly."
The giant's next strike pulled him into its fist. Then again. Then again. Bones cracked. The sound was dull, wet.
Veyra screamed as she ran.
Her feet barely touched the ground as she sprinted, leapt, and climbed the giant's back, blades flashing silver in the haze. She launched herself upward, twisting midair, and came down with both swords driving into either side of the giant's head.
Driving deep straight down.
The sound was sharp and final.
The giant staggered, dropping Veryn. It turned, fell to one knee, blood spilling like liquid ember. One sword had pierced deep into its heart from above, slowing with each faint beat.
Lifting its head weakly toward the sky. The words came haltingly, shaped by a tongue unused to the human form.
"For Wind… who moves between breath and storm," it rumbled.
"For the small one… who runs with your grace."
"Carry her spirit fast… swift as your song."
"And when her blade rises again… let it cut clean."
The sound of it rolled through the air like a fading gust, a prayer not for itself, but for the one who struck it down. This was the giant's way. In death they offered a prayer for those ended them and not for themselves.
Then the giant bowed its head and went still.
Veyra stumbled to her brother's side. Her hands shook as she brushed black hair from his face, leaving streaks of blood behind.
He didn't stir.
Her vision blurred from tears, her breath sharp. Even though she knew he would be back this still hurt. More than anything ever had.
She whispered something only the wind could hear.
Then Veryn's body shimmered, breaking apart into motes of light that drifted upward and vanished. The sword and shield clattered to the dirt.
Veyra turned. The giant's body did the same, fading, dissolving, leaving behind her two bloodstained blades.
She stared at them for a long moment, her jaw trembling, her chest rising and falling in ragged bursts. Then rage took hold.
She let out a scream that ripped through the battlefield, a sound of grief and defiance all at once.
She snatched up her blades and ran toward the next giant she saw.
This one was female, taller even than the last, her axe almost as broad as Grey himself.
When she saw Veyra charging, her expression shifted, not excitement, not challenge, but something colder. A grimace of disappointment.
There was no honor in this fight.
The giant lowered her stance slightly, almost like a teacher watching a student rush in swinging too soon.
Veyra leapt, blades forward.
For a heartbeat, the giant hesitated, then lifted her axe in a single smooth arc.
The giant stepped aside with frightening grace.
The axe came around in a single, fluid motion.
Steel met flesh.
Veyra fell before her cry had even finished leaving her lips.
From a rise near the tree line, one of the robed chroniclers scribbled furiously in her book, ink blotting where her hand shook. The quill moved faster, almost frantic, as though the story itself refused to slow.
Grey walked beside Argent, watching the field. His hand kept time against his leg, tapping softly, a rhythm without music.
He smiled sadly. "Those twins," he said. "They had a fine song. Short, sure, but bright. They danced together with the tempo of it too, every strike, every breath in perfect rhythm . Worth the trip already."
Argent didn't answer. He couldn't. He was focused on what was ahead.
The horns sounded again, deeper this time, echoing across the bloodied plain.
And the war went on.