a. Giants are a fearsome and shocking race. In their lands, every wide field dotted with fat cows and sheep is under the watch of a great castle keep. This is because each giant, although content at his midday meal to gulp down an animal from his herd or his flock, has an irresistible penchant for the flesh of his fellows. Giant young are quite safe, for their taste is tart and their skeleton gritty between the teeth. They are of no more interest, in the culinary sense, than is a green nut to one of us. The meat on the bones of a mature giant is subtly flavourful, however. The bones themselves are succulent, the blood rich to the diner's taste. A mature giant is called 'a ripe one' by his kind; and a large captive can be the mainstay of a feast, or worth a gilded fortune in trade. No adult can travel far unprotected. The heavy doors to the fortified keeps are well maintained to withstand company.

  b. Such are the mores of the giants, broadly shared by a particular threesome. The first of these was a huge thing shaped like a cone. It rolled on a large hairy ball for a foot. From its shoulders hung arms like trees, with knotty, long fingers down to the ground. The head was shaped in a T, having flat, fleshy lobes before and behind to form a club. Its eyes sank beneath its chin; and a gaping, black mouth spanned most of its chest. Bellows they called it, since when it spoke it cupped its hands round its lips like a horn to shake the ground with the force of its breath.

c. Bobbles was the second, the smallest and roundest of the lot, who had interchangeable pairs of arms and legs, four pairs of each, that made a crown when attached above or below its paunch. Its head rolled like a cannonball when it walked, and often was set on the side to shout orders while its frenzied limbs went to work. The last of the trio was a frightful mess. It had been three individual giants long ago, before freak chance had squashed them all into one. Their heads were a mish-mash with six eyes in a spin; the ears telescoped out to triple sprouts on each side; and beneath three pairs of nostrils splaying the nose, the mouths receded into the face like concentric caves. Although the arms were hopelessly entangled, each crooking and jabbing across the others, the legs were wonderful to behold. Two of its feet ran at a time, with the others cocked up as upon a horse. The giant, with those limbs in rotation, could hold a pace that was matchless in the land. Smash was its name; and it had one sure talent: no lock was impervious to its cunning..

  d. The three disparate giants had formed a working relationship, unusual insofar as it had not tumbled to dissolution through the parties devouring each other, that sad lapse of group spirit habitually terminating arrangements of this sort. They were complimentary in the sense that each found the others a terrible wretch. Upon mutual revulsion was based a durable, professional entente. In the land of giants, this was close as one came to bonds of shared respect. The great Bellows was mouthpiece for all, negotiating the terms for consulting clever Smash, ensuring that payment was forthcoming, and dividing the shares. It occasionally pocketed an extra sheep or two for itself, but none begrudged this. The spoils were plentiful; and bickering with Bellows was uncommonly loud business. Bobbles crafted the gate-bursting tools to Smash's concise specifications, threw in a few tricks of its own, and kept a close eye on the money. As often as not, Bobbles' trunkless head sat squarely between the work on one side, and the promised prize on the other, while its gaggle of limbs went on with the job. Smash, for its part, was happy to think about breaking down castle keeps, letting the others busy themselves with the rest

e.The band might have remained contented and comfortable, had not Bellows become maniacally greedy. It perceived that any giants who followed Smash's astute counsel could corral dozens of sheep, perhaps even a ripe one now and then, while their little band of three would be paid its same, modest stipend whatever the capture. Bellows began to take the trio on raids of its own, just for practice - the giants called these forays - and eventually teamed the three with a monstrous horde from upriver. Spoils were tremendous when the horde, with the band's help, began to pillage battalion-sized enclosures. A simple deal then was struck, which held for a goodly time. Should the band fail to crack the keep they would receive nothing, and would have to break open the next for no more than their costs. Should the keep be breached and the battle lost, this would be no fault of the three, so they would take half of anything salvaged. When the battle was won, as often turned out, then the fortunate trio would have first pick of the ripe ones, alive or dead, led or dragged out on a rope, to be exchanged in most instances for a pot of gold.

   f. As long as things went well, the horde had its fill of plunder. Only when two campaigns or more had collapsed would the savage crew tear into themselves. The trio kept well out of the way in those execrable instances, for it would have been dismal to miss spending the gold they had amassed, for having been eaten in a moment of inattention. So it might have gone for Bellows, Bobble and Smash, had not ravens from the hills, an unsavoury lot, forded the river in search of thorny apples. This was to be a catalyst for events in unforeseen confluence. Thorny apples are another peculiarity of the giants' lands. When a ripe one dies of old age and is laid to rest in home ground, is planted, so to speak, there sprouts from its grave a stocky tree eventually to be laden with thorny apples. Vegetable produce has no genuine appeal to giant palettes; but suddenly the ravens were willing to trade weighty sacks of glittering coin for bushels of fruit. All at once, a ripe one consumed became a tree forgone, a frivolity, an annuity assassinated.

g. Because apple germination required giants deceased of natural causes, complex strategies of occupation and siege soon replaced those, rather more accessible to the race, of straightforward attack and pillage. Lock-picking, mortar-weakening, and such skills of stealth came into tremendous demand as soon as ageing prisoners were worth far more than the cadavers of those massacred in routine assaults. The clever little band's renown spread to a point that the ravens would refuse to finance a campaign of prowls, should the technically apt trio not be on the payroll. This worried the horde, who rightly feared losing control, especially as Bellows, the glutton, had begun to cash in every time he could, squandering common resources on meals, which really cost money those days. Couldn't he see that trade was expanding? The horde proposed a hefty stake in the commerce to the three, conditional upon there being no further feasts for anyone. "I eats what I needs off here on this gold the pile," said Bellows. "Still, the ones against the horde won't go long, and the more we help the more them too," he mused. "There's no place for meun with their lot," stamped out Bobbles. "You throw in, you climb out, I'm gone with my glitter to a far piece the eye." It twirled its legs, rolling its head on a circle of fists.

  h. "The point, the poke," spoke Smash, "yis how to push the horde to snap, while we cracks other bones to bend." Its arms were a tangle, but most of its eyes were cocked brightly. "Agh," banged Smash on Bellow's club of a head. "In they'll have. Out we'll push," it cried. "Good tickle," the giant replied, "watch the fingers." "Dead said," added Bobbles. So the three turncoats played a close game with the horde. They sportingly joined in captures on the near side of the river, and spent the rest of their efforts in fortifying, for rich pay, the keeps on the far side. When the horde invaded the opposite banks, as it was bound to do, the threesome quit for other parts. Behind them, subsequent prowls were at a stand off, in the face of cleverly reinforced defences, while the small band's gold was before them. The horde hadn't so much as found time to renege on its commitments in order to make a fine meal of the three. In the thick of things, much is to be said for complements, even should each think the others stink.