Chapter 25. Competent People
The soldier who'd announced them led Sael and Bulma down a corridor lit by lights set into brass fixtures. Their boots echoed against the floor in a rhythm that would have been pleasant if Sael weren't being escorted like a man about to deliver very bad news.
Which, to be fair, he was.
They passed offices with open doors. Clerks bent over ledgers. A woman arguing with someone about requisition forms. The smell of coffee and ink and metal dust.
At the end of the corridor stood a much larger door. Dark wood, reinforced with iron bands, and flanked by two more guards in Concordia's colors.
And in front of that door stood the biggest human being Sael had ever seen.
No, not human. The man had to be seven and a half feet tall, perhaps closer to eight. Shoulders like the beams that held up temple ceilings. Arms that could probably lift a horse without much complaint. His uniform had clearly been tailored specifically for him, and even then it looked like the fabric was under considerable strain.
Giantborn, Sael thought.
The term had started appearing in the last few decades. People born with giant ancestry, though nobody seemed to know exactly how that ancestry had come about. The first recorded cases were recent enough that scholars were still arguing about origins.
Giants themselves were rare and reclusive. Most lived in mountain ranges so remote that even adventurers avoided them, and the ones who did interact with other races weren't exactly chatty about their personal lives.
So how did a giant and a human produce offspring?
The question was purely academic, Sael told himself. A matter of biological curiosity. The mechanics involved would be... problematic. Giants averaged fifteen to twenty feet in height. Humans averaged five to six. The proportions simply didn't align in any practical sense.
Perhaps magic was involved. Some kind of transformation spell. But that raised further questions about which party would need to be transformed, and whether the transformation would need to be maintained throughout... the entire process.
Or perhaps giants had a smaller form they could assume temporarily. Though no literature Sael had read mentioned such an ability.
Or perhaps there was a intermediate stage of giant development where they were closer to human size, and...
He realized his mind had been working through this problem for several seconds while he stared at the giantborn man.
Stop thinking about giant reproduction.
The giantborn man noticed them approaching. His eyes were a pale grey, and his face broke into a smile so warm it caught Sael off guard.
"Eh, Lieutenant!" he called out, his voice carrying an accent Sael couldn't quite place. Not Concordian. Something coastal. The vowels were rounder, more relaxed. "This the Duke's man?"
"Corporal Thane," Bulma said. "This is Sael Hel. He has business with the Captain."