“Hoy, you great towheaded sack of pig piss! It’s a little different when we fight back, isn’t it? Come on, come on!” He proceeded to taunt the giant with gestures as well as words. “Surely you can handle one tiny fella like me!”
Grimacing, the giant brought an enormous foot up and stamped down, only to find that once again Simna ibn Sind had skipped nimbly out of the way. Not by the margin the swordsman had intended, however. The giant was clumsy, it was true, but he was not as slow as Simna had first supposed. His defiant smirk began to develop a nervous twitch.
Ehomba arrived with sword in hand. He was furious, but not at the giant.
“What do you think you are doing?” he snapped at his imprudently energetic friend.
“Saving what’s left of a village for the good of its innocent inhabitants.” Panting, Simna stood close to the herdsman. “You pick your noble causes, I’ll pick mine.”
“There is nothing noble in a senseless death.” Ehomba noted that the giant was watching them warily, trying to determine the orientation of its next blow.
“I don’t plan on dying.”
“No one does, but it happens just the same.” Taking a deep breath, Ehomba addressed the giant. No matter who, or what, his adversary, he firmly believed in trying reason before the sword. “Greetings, imposing one! Why are you destroying the village Khorixas?”
Red eyebrows dense and tangled as berry thickets drew together. “What ‘village’ Khorixas? There is no village by that name.” Callused and scored, a free hand indicated the ruins among which the oversized speaker was standing. “This miserable blot on the earth is Feo-Nottoa.” The hand rose to smack sonorously against the broad chest. “I am the Berserker Khorixas!” The great hammer started to rise threateningly. “You should know the name of the one who is about to kill you.”