Krunk had dug a Goliath-style fire pit (Dakota fire pit) in the earth, careful to maintain the ground's structural stability over the air intake hole. The exhaust pit opened inside his tent, the air intake hole opened outside away from the door. It was small, he didn't have much fuel at this altitude and he only needed to knock the chill off for a few hours while he rested since he was eating trail rations rather than cooking a kill. He sat on the far side of his tent, away from the intake hole to further protect it from collapse. It didn't smoke, that was the beauty of the set up, so he could rest assured that no one would be following a column of smoke to his resting place. It was in a hidden depression, around the side of a protrusion from a tall rock face. The light from the fire, hard to see already, was further blocked by his dome tent. A stretched piece of leather over the vent hole on the outside kept rain out, an identical piece of stretched leather on the inside kept the light in. A small wooden rod held by tension between the two kept both appropriately tented for their respective jobs, one up and one down.
The Goliath chewed a piece of venison jerky slowly, thoughtfully, drawing the juices out more as an exercise in patience than out of any real hunger. He hadn't -felt- like eating in days, though he'd done so with the wooden regularity of a clockwork machine. He had to keep his strength up, one never knew when the mountains would test it, even if he felt hopeless in so many ways. Survival was the first lesson every Goliath was taught and Krunk was no exception. His wife was dead. His child... no, he corrected himself mentally, her child was being raised by another man's family. That man was also dead. Both deaths had been at the hands of an enraged Krunk, as he'd found them in the throws of passion and heard his wife speak of the other man as the father of her child.
It had all started out as such a perfect day. He'd felled a bear, enough meat to feed the tribe on glutton rations for most of a week as large as the tribe was. That was some feat, and he'd done it with a spear that had unfortunately shattered. His father, the acting medicine man, had awarded him one of his people's most prized weapons for the feat. A Goliath Greathammer that had been forged by Dwarves out of a rare metal. With word of Giants in the south it was a prestigious item to hold. Krunk, overjoyed, had immediately set out toward the berry picking slope that brought his tribe to camp there every other year to show his wife his grand prize.
And there he'd found them.
Brokenhearted, at first, at the realization that she didn't love him. Then 'give me another of your children, Har'grath' had been uttered and all he could recall was red. Red in his vision, red terror in her face as she'd noticed him, red blood roaring in his own ears as she'd clutched at her lover protectively, and red blood spraying as he'd put his spear through them both. Pinning them together for all time as the adulterers they were. He'd know, before he'd even acted, that if he'd merely walked away and informed the tribe mother that both of them would have been shamed. They would have likely been cast out of the tribe. But they would have been together with their son, and Krunk couldn't allow them even -that- small comfort. They wouldn't be remembered fondly for their act, and there was no comfort for the dead. But Krunk had sealed his own fate in the doing, and without a word he had returned to the camp of his tribe one last time.
His weapon was placed in a leather sling that had been made just for it, then about his chest. Krunk wasn't a failure, he'd take his prize with him. His things were gathered, her's tossed out on the ground, and the child's placed in a basket. The tribe mother would come for those eventually, no one else would take them. His tent came down and by that point he had gathered an audience, but he said nothing to them. By the time he had it in his over-sized pack the news had reached the camp. The looks turned sad, some turned angry but they carried the blood of the shamed and they turned away quickly at his glance. The tribe mother came and looked to him. "He is not of my blood, by her own words," Krunk had said stoically, while shouldering his pack. The tribe mother had merely nodded in understanding before embracing him goodbye. He was not to be shamed, merely exiled. A huge difference in Goliath society.
His father was amongst the last to hear and had rushed to catch his son at the edge of the village, pressing a bundle of food into Krunk's arms. They'd said not a word, as the two massive beings stared at each other. His father had taken Krunk's head into his hands, held firmly, and all they could ever say to one another of feelings and hopes was communicated. And then Krunk had walked out of the camp of his tribe one last time. Three days, he decided. It had taken three days for him to reach the spot where he at that moment sat. South. Toward the Giants. One last service to his people, to protect all that was left of his love. Lower in altitude than he had ever bothered to go before, looking down on a dozen bonfires in a closed valley. He would wait until the last hour before down, when the world turned to grey and black shadows that matched the coloration of his skin. That was when he would attack. That was when he would lead them away from his people, to the east as he knew they would be moving west this morning.
He would flee his mountains for the only time.