Free Fimbulwinter (Daniel Black) by E. William Brown

opened my eyes again. Apparently it had been a while, because
    Cerise was dressed now and Avilla was nowhere in sight. The slender witch
    was arguing rather heatedly with a group of soldiers. About a dozen of them,
    all gathered in a nervous clump with bulging packs on their backs.
    “A little thing like you won’t last long out here without protection,” one of
    the soldiers was saying. “Maybe the wizard will wake up, and maybe he
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    won’t. Either way he’s not going to be in any shape to take care of you girls.”
    “You have no idea what our master is capable of,” Cerise sniffed. “If you
    guys want to run off in a panic I can’t stop you, but we’re safer with him even
    if there wasn’t a soldier left in the camp.”
    “Come on, Rolf, quit dicking around,” one of the men grumbled. “Just
    throw the little bitch over your shoulder and let’s go. She’ll come around after
    we fuck her a few times.”
    “Shut up, Hroldir,” the leader said gruffly.
    “Yeah,” Cerise chuckled darkly. “You don’t steal a wizard’s property.
    When he first took us our master bound our wills to his so we’d serve him
    faithfully forever, and laid dark curses on us to make sure any other man who
    touches us will die screaming. Not to mention we aren’t just his pet bedtoys,
    we’re sorceresses. If you mess with us we’ll be cursing you and screwing up
    your shit forever.”
    Hroldir gave Rolf a stubborn look, but the group’s leader ignored him.
    “Now look, missy, there’s no need to take that tone. Some of the men may be
    thinking with their dicks, but if the wizard dies on us you’ll be glad enough
    there’s someone willing to take you in. I wouldn’t even be giving you the
    chance if I hadn’t seen you and the crazy blonde come running out of the
    Witchwood full of goblin arrows. No way any of these civilian girls could
    keep up on a forced march.”
    “Now we can carry your master for a bit if you think he can be moved, but
    that giant’s buddies could be here any minute. So you need to tell your friend to
    put down the cleaver and grab her pack right fucking now, or we’re leaving all
    three of you here to die.”
    “We’re not the ones in danger of that here,” I interrupted.
    The men gasped, and I was amused to note that a couple of the ones
    between me and Hroldir exchanged nervous glances and discretely stepped out
    of the line of fire.
    “What’s going on?” I said sharply. “Where’s Captain Rain?”
    There were grim looks at that.
    “He’s fucked up bad, sir wizard,” Rolf explained. “A felwolf bit half his
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    arm off, and then the damned giant stepped on him. One of the boys got a rope
    around the arm, and maybe you could save him if you had time. But he’s got so
    much shit broken he’ll die for sure if we try to move him, and if we don’t get
    our asses in gear here we’re all goners.”
    I frowned, and took Cerise’s offered hand to pull myself to my feet.
    “What’s the hurry?”
    I glanced around, noting that there were a lot fewer people in the camp
    than there had been yesterday. The remaining villagers were all huddled in a
    miserable-looking mass next to the one intact wagon, along with a handful of
    soldiers. A few people were tending the wounded or policing the camp, and I
    caught a flash of Avilla’s blonde mane atop one of the dead wolves. But most
    of them were just huddled under their blankets looking terrified.
    Then I realized the sun was up. It must have risen while I was healing
    myself, but I was sure that hadn’t taken more than a half hour or so. I felt a
    prickle of disquiet as I realized the attack had come during what the military
    calls ‘morning nautical twilight’ - the same timing modern special forces
    groups prefer for surprise attacks. It might just be a coincidence, but I suddenly
    had a bad feeling about the general competence level of those giants.
    Rolf’s response didn’t help.
    “The stories all say giants live in big