On the Manacardi line

Henri de Laballe was violent, bloodthirsty, cunning, and possessed many other undesirable character traits, but one thing he was not: stupid. During the mobilization of his army, he realized that the Manacardi Line would pose a considerable problem.

The moronic, shit-king had had it built for years. It had only recently been completed, as Laballe had learned. His spies had managed to establish contact with an underground movement in the kingdom called the "Brown Hand." Besides some useless information about goat breeding, this had revealed that "the mortal" had erected a "border wall thingamajig." Unfortunately, the flow of information suddenly dried up.

Therefore, Henri was unaware that the Manacardi Line had been completed just in time, before Le Roi ran out of money. The money he now lacked to man the defensive line with enough mercenaries – this was unknown to Henri, who consequently had to expect to face a well-armed and manned fortification.

The Manacardi Line encircled almost the entire kingdom, with the most fortifications, bunkers, booby traps, and trenches along the borders with the aggressive Laballe territories. In large sections of these areas, it was also reinforced by a massive wall, up to four meters high, with watchtowers from which signal fires were intended to ensure a continuous alarm system from post to post.

The underpaid crews used the allocated wood supply – insofar as it was available at all – during the winter to heat their drafty barracks, which meant that there was virtually no wood left for emergencies in the cold season.

The hangars Manacardi had planned for his new wonder weapon, self-propelled fighting vehicles, also stood empty. The fortress builder, military engineer, and polymath still hadn't managed to equip his war machines with the perpetual motion engine he intended for them.

Manacardi's wonder weapons were as notorious at court as his flight experiments. The ultimate new weapons usually exploded, and the flying machines invariably only traveled short distances in the wrong direction.

However, and this would prove significant, Manacardi had managed to design reliable, manned tethered balloons that could be launched from certain points along the defensive line named after him to spot approaching threats. One of these balloons was constantly airborne along the border with the Laballes. And for good reason.

"I feel sick."

"Shut up, pilot. One more hour of watch. Puke over the basket rim if you have to."

Daniel Brasfort, a First Class Aero-Ballooner in the Kingdom's Air Force, hated having to ascend with rookies. The common airman with whom he shared the observation basket of the tethered balloon was making his maiden voyage and was clearly not cut out for higher duties.

Brasfort, however, dreamed of soaring far beyond the observation altitude of the tethered balloon at 300 meters, perhaps even reaching the moon, the stars! For the time being, however, the situation on the ground required Brasfort's full attention when using his telescope.

"There – there's something there. Something's coming!"

Brasfort adjusted the focus of the eyepiece. What he then saw all too clearly prompted him to exclaim, "My God, the devil!" Even he, the seasoned veteran, felt sick. The view, for the entire kingdom, he had to admit, was nauseating. What was approaching its border defied all imagination.

In the “War Chamber”

I don't know what gets on my nerves more: this stupid reading lesson or that idiot Manacardi. He's now prescribed golden pheasants as a diet for the king, so that progress will finally be made with the high-quality excrement of our ruler.

I don't know much about many things, but I do know a thing or two about shit; I've shoveled it long enough. It has its value, no question about it. Otherwise, you couldn't use it as fertilizer. Otherwise, they wouldn't call our group—Roman, me, and the others—"gold diggers." But the likelihood of Manacardi turning manure into gold is about as high as him ever wearing a clean tunic.

It's early afternoon, and Manacardi is snoring on the bed in his tower chamber, an empty bottle of wine beside him. He's assigned me reading exercises. On the table in front of me are a letter chart from A to Z and an open book. That's all Manacardi has given me. "Now read on," he chuckled, and then retreated onto his stained sheet.

The letters don't look bad; he painted them himself for me, after all, and he embellished them nicely. Unfortunately, I have absolutely no idea what they mean. Yes, they appear on every page of the book, and the book itself is very pretty. Whenever a new page begins, the first letter is especially large and carefully painted; blossoms and garlands spring from it, and little birds perch on crossbars, like some letters have. But the meaning of it all eludes me.

I look around. One wall of the room is plastered with reddish sketches. I quietly push my chair back so as not to wake Manacardi and approach them. Most of it is anatomical stuff, apparently dissected corpses from which all sorts of things are spilling. But there are also mechanical drawings. I can make out cannon barrels, eight in a row, mounted around an axle that can be rotated, revealing two more rows of eight.

I imagine how this weapon would work in battle. You could mow down entire hordes of charging enemies with it. Manacardi is undoubtedly a dangerous man. And now I'm his henchman. Why? What does the maître d' rea hope to achieve by handing me over to him?

Hurried feet rush up the tower stairs towards us. I quickly sit down again and pretend to be engrossed in my book.

The door swings open. A lackey rushes in. "Giant sighting!" he shouts, "We have a giant sighting! The war council has been summoned, the presence of the noble scholar is required immediately!"

The noble scholar belches and farts. Then he turns to the other side of his bed. The lackey looks at me with panic in his eyes. I get up and go to the bed. I lift the mattress on one side and turn it over, along with the noble scholar. He's awake now, that's for sure.

I don't understand his Italian curses, but he understands the situation perfectly. He scrambles to his feet, glares at me, but gestures for me to follow him. We hurry down the tower stairs behind the footman.

This grants me the status of a keeper of secrets. For the room we are led to lies deep in the castle cellars and is known to, let alone accessible to, only a few members of the court. It is called "La Chambre de la Guerre," as Manacardi whispers to me on the way there, and even this name is top secret.

We are expected to meet the King himself, his Chancellor, and highly decorated generals of the kingdom's armed forces. Judging by the number of generals, the realm must possess a vast army, and possibly a navy as well, since two of the gentlemen wear anchor symbols on their white caps, even though the realm has no coastline, as far as I know. But I don't know much. If the medals hanging from the generals' heads actually contain precious metal, they could certainly be used to replenish the war chest if these decorations were melted down.

The war council is gathered around a giant sandbox on table legs. Artfully recreated on it are the hills of the kingdom's mountainous region, the valleys, the villages, the capital. The Manacardi Line is indicated with wooden sticks, interrupted by small turrets, and a tethered balloon floats above one. Behind the fortifications stand small tin soldiers and cavalry, toy cannons, and wagons equipped with miniature cannons.

The king beckons us over, ignoring our bows, looks at the sandbox with obvious delight, and claps his hands together. "Now that," he says, glancing around with satisfaction, "is what I call an army and a formidable fortification! Impregnable, isn't it, mon Chancelier?"

The Chancellor, Aristide Marchand, replied: “Certainly, Your Majesty, certainly. However, I would like to point out that we are looking at the current planning status. If I may briefly subject it to a harsh reality test…”

The Chancellor repeatedly reaches into the sandbox, removing all the cavalry, a good portion of the infantry, most of the cannons, and all the gun carriages. Finally, he stabs a needle into the balloon, which bursts with a bang. "Desertion due to massive shock. One First Class Balloonist and one Commoner missing. I fear, Your King, the Laballe invasion has begun."

Giants before the doors, Teil eins

Turmo the Trampler and his band quickly reached the Laballes' castle. There, they were met with the following sight:

A blood-soaked Trako, chained by cement to the battlements of the keep's central walkway, hung roughly at eye level with his father, but separated from him by a moat and the outer and inner castle walls. These would have posed no obstacle whatsoever for Turmo and his men, however formidable the Laballes' castle might have seemed. But the walls were manned with crossbowmen, all aiming at Trako. A single crossbow could reliably take down game at 200 meters; 24 crossbows, as were now aimed at the unfortunate prisoner, could certainly have killed a giant as well.

Henri de Laballe, in full armor, leaned his left hand on a battlement above the raised drawbridge of the castle and casually waved to the giants with his other hand.

"Ah, the gentlemen giants. More willing to talk than our guest, I hope." Laballe pointed at Trako. "Unfortunately, he's picked up a few injuries. He must have been a bit careless on the climb to his airy lookout. I expect a bit more caution from you. Otherwise... well, there'll be a huge mess."

Turmo ordered his men to halt. He yelled at Laballe: "Asshole! Filthy swine!"

These accurate descriptions, as usual, failed to have any effect on Laballe. He had heard them many times before and always retaliated with a bloodbath. Laballe beckoned up to the keep's walkway, where additional henchmen stationed there were pulling on Trako's hair, exposing the throat of the diminutive giant, and placing a chain around it with which they could strangle him should the crossbowmen prove insufficiently lethal.

“I recommend moderation in tone,” Henri Turmo suggested to the Trampler. “The proper form of address is: Your Grace. And you would do well to expect mercy from me, for after all, your son’s life lies in my hands. So let us begin again: I greet you, Turmo the Trampler, and permit you and your entourage to kneel before me.”

Turmo looked at his men. They nodded. He caved in as they did. The giants didn't exactly sink into the dust, but they submitted and knelt, Turmo accidentally on an outer bastion of Laballe Castle, which crumbled to rubble with a crash. Henri de Laballe didn't like seeing this, but nevertheless felt better than ever in his life—except for the day, when he was three years old, he had broken his little dog's neck because it wouldn't give his paw. Then he gave the giants his orders.