"Let's go—before we get mistaken for vermin and stomped," Morten growled.
The princess led the way to the other end of the lodge, where another fomorian was halfheartedly performing a dance of debauchery. Though just as bald and warty as the cook, her abnormalities were mostly monumental exaggerations of curves typical to the females of most giant races. In a morose attempt to beguile her audience, she was spinning in a little circle, shaking her chest and swiveling her hips, raising a choking cloud of dust by stomping the beat to an eerie song of dismay that rumbled from her lips.
If the hill giants fathomed the sad beauty of the fomorian's dance, they showed no sign. They lounged around, bellowing lewd comments, mocking her deformities, and rutting with each other. In the center of this crowd, sitting cross-legged on the dirt floor and tossing hunks of charred meat at the woman's cleavage, was the dull-eyed, corpulent giant who Brianna had once been foolish enough to believe would save her: Noote.
Beside the chieftain sat an especially large and flaccid giant wearing a silver necklace that Brianna's father had once sent as a gift to Noote's wife. On the queen's shoulder—assuming she was the queen—sat one of the talking birds Simon had enchanted to serve as messengers, a raven with a silver band around its leg. It crossed Brianna's mind that her father may have sent the bird to ask the hill giants' help in rescuing her from the ogres. But if that were so, she certainly saw no sign that the chieftain had done anything to honor the request.
On the side opposite Noote's wife sat another female— at least the princess hoped the giant was female, considering where the chieftain's free hand was resting. If the queen disapproved of her husband's actions, she showed
no sign, and was in fact engaged in her own dalliance with a fellow beside her.
Brianna had a sinking feeling in her stomach. It was not just a faint apprehension of trouble, but a pain more like a granite ball grinding its way through her digestive tract. During his visits to Hartwick Vale, Noote had always struck her as a rather noble savage, crude and primitive, but basically good at heart. Now, she saw that she had been as mistaken about his character as about Tavis's. Not only was the giant cruel and debauched, he was a slave-taker and a hypocrite as well. If her father knew what occurred inside the Fir Palace, the princess felt sure Noote would not have been such a frequent and welcome guest in Castle Hartwick.
Brianna closed her eyes and took several deep breaths, girding herself against her rising fear. Now more than ever she realized Tavis had been right about the hill giant. Not that it mattered. Even if they had wanted to, they could not have avoided both Rog and the ogres, or that was what the princess told herself. She could not allow herself to consider the possibility that the scout had been right to suggest climbing straight up the mountain. Even now, that plan seemed too crazy to have worked—but was it? If she had followed the scout's advice, perhaps they would be camping somewhere above Hartsvale tonight instead of trusting their lives to the unpredictable mercies of hill giants. Perhaps Avner and Earl Dobbin would still be alive—Brianna shook her head, trying to shut out the visions of their deaths. She could live with the guilt of causing the lord mayor's death, but not Avner's. That burden was too heavy to bear. If she allowed herself to think about it, she would not have the strength to negotiate for Noote's help— and, as slim as it was, that was the only hope for her or her companions.
The princess opened her eyes, then circled around the fomorian's gyrating mass, narrowly avoiding being
knocked off her feet as an immense hip swung past her head. She led the way forward until she had cleared the dust cloud raised by the dancer's feet, then stopped in front of Noote's colossal bulk. Brianna craned her neck and found herself looking up into a pair of cavernous nostrils. The chieftain remained entirely oblivious to her presence, flinging an entire haunch of venison high over her head, then laughing uproariously when it became lodged between his slave's pendulous breasts.
"I'm glad you don't behave this way in Castle Hartwick!" Brianna deliberately allowed her anger to creep into her voice as she yelled. Their best hope lay in keeping Noote off-balance. If she could convince him that she was in control of the situation, that his only choice was to do as she ordered or face her father's wrath, he might not pause to consider that he was in charge in his own palace. "Perhaps next time you visit, we'll let you root for your food with the swine."
Noote's jaw dropped, and his gaze flickered around the room for a moment, then he finally realized where the sound was coming from and looked down at Brianna. His face was even more brutal than that of most hill giants, with narrow black eyes, a broad flat nose spreading from one cheek to the other, and a mouthful of jagged gray teeth that had been filed to sharp points.
"Princess!" he gasped. Noote's eyes flicked above Brianna's head to the fomorian dancer, then his face turned a deep shade of crimson. He grabbed another hunk of venison and threw it at the slave, bellowing, "Put skins on!"
The fomorian quickly trundled toward the wall to obey, her face betraying her relief at the interruption.
"Please, don't let me interrupt." Brianna cast a pointed glance at the hand still lying in the lap of the giant next to Noote. "It's apparent you weren't expecting me."
The chieftain pulled his hand back to his own lap and shoved his companion away. "Act nice!" he bellowed. He
leaned across his queen and also pushed her friend away. "Joke over!"
"What joke, Noote?" the queen asked.
Noote's face deepened to a shade of maroon so dark it was almost black. "Rutting jokes," he hissed, nudging her in the ribs. "This Princess Brianna."
All around him, hill giants furrowed thick brows in confusion. Their murmurs filled the chamber like the drone of Camden's guards gathering in the courtyard for an unexpected assembly.
"Quiet!" Noote demanded.
A few nearby giants fell silent, but that only increased the curiosity of those farther away, and the clamor actually grew louder. Noote's wife glanced around, seeming more irritated at having her bacchanalia interrupted than at the noise, then glared down at Brianna. The queen was uglier than her husband, with sagging red bags under her eyes and a plump, oval-shaped mouth smeared with black soot—whether for decoration or by accident, Brianna could not tell.
"Who?" the queen demanded.
Noote leaned over and whispered in her great ear, fingering the silver necklace she had been sent by Brianna's father. The queen's eyes opened wide, and her expression changed from one of irritation to one of surprise.
"Quiet!" she thundered.
The lodge fell instantly silent. The queen whispered something to Noote. Brianna could not quite make out her words, but she could hear the breath of the giantess rusding in the chief's ear like wind in a box canyon.
Noote whispered something back to his wife. This time Brianna heard something about stealing and ogres, and the couple exchanged a few more whispers. Finally, Noote nodded, then fixed his attention on his unexpected guest.
"What doing here?"
"I escaped from my kidnappers. I should think that
you'd have guessed that yourself." Brianna allowed her gaze to flick up to the raven sitting on the queen's shoulder. "My father did send a message telling you about it, didn't he?"
Noote glanced at the bird, then looked back to Brianna. "Just come tonight." He glanced over the princess's head and cast a thoughtful eye at her companions. "Him say two firbolgs trying to rescue you. That them?"
"Yes," Brianna replied, Although her tone was calm enough, thoughts were racing through her mind with the speed of swooping falcons. It was apparent that Noote's queen was the real power behind the throne, and the princess was hardly prepared for that. She did not even know the giantess's name! Forcing herself to keep her eyes on Noote, the princess continued, "And now I need an escort back to Castle Hartwick."
Noote furrowed his brow and turned to consult with his queen. They exchanged a few whispered comments, then the chief looked over Brianna's head to Sart.
"Where they come from?" he demanded, gesturing at Brianna and her companions.
"From High Gate." The sentry looked at Noote as though the chief had lost his mind. "Where you think?"
Noote hurled a charred boar's head at Sart, then growled, "Who chasing them? Ogres?"
Sart nodded. "Yeah. Lots of ogres. Ogres kill Rog, but I fight 'em back and close gate." The giant glanced down at Brianna with a hopeful expression. "Right?"
Brianna gave Sart a reassuring smile, but she was thinking to herself that the giant would have been much better off if he had taken them direcdy to Castie Hartwick. The princess glanced at Morten and nodded for him to put Tavis down. Once she saw that the bodyguard understood her instructions, she looked back to Noote.
"That's not what happened at all."
"Lying girl!" The giant stomped forward to silence the princess.
Morten hurled himself at Sart's knees, knocking the astonished sentry to the floor. The two figures grappled, a thick cloud of dust billowing up to hide the combat.
"Stop!" Noote yelled, rising. "Not time for fighting!"
"Sit down, Noote!" Brianna motioned for the chieftain to resume his seat, then, in a more gentle voice, added, "Morten's not going to hurt your guard."
As the princess had hoped, her comment drew a raised brow from the queen, who grabbed her husband's arm and pulled Noote roughly back to the ground. The struggle continued for only a few moments more before it abruptly ceased. When the dust cleared, Morten was sitting astride Sart's throat with the giant's own dagger pressed against his throbbing jugular vein.
"I wouldn't take a deep breath," the firbolg warned. "This blade's kind of heavy, and it might slip."
Sart pressed his lips together and held his breath.
Brianna looked back to her hosts. "Now, as I was saying, Sart's version of what happened at the High Gate isn't quite accurate." She motioned to Morten and Tavis, then added, "Actually, Rog and Kol were killed in an argument over some horses I promised to send to Rog."
Noote's eyes opened wide. "Kol dead too?" he thundered, glaring at Sart. "Who at High Gate?"
Sart swallowed nervously. "No one," he admitted.
The chief snatched his bone dagger from his belt, but managed to keep himself from hurling it at Sart's helpless form. "Go back!" he thundered. He pointed the tip of his knife at two more giants. "You, too!"
The two new sentries jumped from their seats and lifted Morten off Sart, then the three sentries could not scramble from the lodge quickly enough. After watching the trio leave, Brianna turned back to Noote with a bemused smile.
'There's no need for such concern. The ogres won't be bothering you." Brianna motioned at her two companions. "Morten and Tavis stopped them."
At the mention of the scout's name, an astonished buzz rustled through the chamber. Tavis Burdun was as famous among Noote's tribe as he was among humans— perhaps more so, since he'd often been called upon to track down and slay their rogues. A crowd of curious hill giants began to gather, and Morten quickly pushed his way between them to protect the unconscious scout. As he did so, Brianna noticed the wart-covered face of the dancing slave peering down at Tavis from between two burly shoulders. The princess was surprised by the adoration on the slave's face, for she knew Tavis's arrows had also thinned the ranks of many fomorjan tribes.
Brianna's attention was drawn back to Noote and his queen when, after a lengthy consultation with his wife, the chieftain asked, "Them firbolgs kill all ogres?"
The sneer on Noote's lip made it clear that he did not believe they had.
Brianna shook her head. "No, just one," she said. "Goboka."
She smirked hugely, deliberately twisting her face into an expression the hill giants would find difficult to read. In spite of her words, the princess was painfully aware that the shaman had only been driven away, not killed. She avoided lying when possible, but had learned on her father's knee that diplomatic necessity sometimes dictated saying things that were not strictly true.
In this case, convincing Noote and his queen that her firbolgs had actually killed Goboka served two very important goals. First, if they thought the ogre was dead, they would not be tempted to return her to him. Second, if they knew how powerful the shaman was, they might well think it wisest not to anger those who had killed him.
Much to Brianna's relief, her strategy seemed to be working. Noote and his queen had pressed their faces cheek to cheek and were whispering furiously into each other's ears. So intense was their conversation that the
princess could hear certain words flying back and forth, among them "spirit," "ogre," and her father's name. Finally, after a particularly sharp exchange, the queen shoved her husband away.
"Tell me, if Goboka is dead, why do you need an escort from us?" asked the queen.
The princess's jaw dropped. It was a rare giant who could speak so articulately, and for a hill giant to express herself so fluently was unheard of. Brianna could see that she had badly underestimated the queen. By the standards of her race, at least, the giantess was a genius. Even among the earls of Hartwick, she would have to be considered shrewd—and therefore dangerous.
"Perhaps the reason you can't answer my question is that Goboka isn't dead."
The queen was probing, trying to convince Brianna that she knew more than she really did. It was a trick the princess had seen her father use often. "Goboka is dead," she replied. "Unless having his head severed and his heart pulled from his chest does not kill an ogre shaman."
Brianna added this last part in an innocent voice, as though she were really afraid that such treatment might not have killed her enemy.
The queen smiled at Brianna's response. "No, I'm quite sure you killed him if you did that," she replied. "But I'm afraid we won't be returning you to your father."
A cold ball of dread formed in the princess's stomach. "I warn you, the king will be angry if you don't help me."
The queen's smile turned into a sneer. "I think not, my dear," she said, glancing at the raven on her shoulder. "You see, he said we could take you to the Twilight Vale ourselves."
*****
Avner could remember exactly when he had last been this cold—inside the Needle Peak glacier, wading up the
icy stream to rescue Brianna. He had almost died.
He felt certain he was about to die now, as the wind howled along the cliff face, spraying the stone—which was already slick—with freezing sleet, coating the hoisting chain with clear ice, and stealing the warmth from his body with each clatter of his teeth. The thief could hardly bend the frozen fingers on his good hand, but that really did not matter, since it was trembling so hard that he would not trust it to support his weight anyway.
Avner was two links from the bottom of the hoisting chain, his body wedged through the loop and swinging in the freezing wind. He had no concept of how long he had been hanging there, for the last thing he remembered was his stomach rising toward his throat as Kol stepped off the end of the platform.
The sky had arced out of sight in a single flash, and he had found himself staring at the distant spires of the fir forest below. Then Kol's hand crashed into something hard and flew open. Avner felt rough iron scraping down his back and realized it was the chain. He twisted around, arms flaying madly, and nearly wrenched his arm out of its socket as he jammed his hand through a link.
The chain crashed into the cliff. Avner felt the bones in his wrist being mashed to powder as the chain ground his arm against the cliff. His entire body went limp; had his hand not been trapped, he would have plunged after Kol into the trees below. But his pain served him well, reminding him that he was still alive and might stay that way if he reacted quickly enough. With his good hand, the boy grabbed hold of the link and pulled himself up, wedging his body through the center as it twisted away from the wall. He banged into the granite several more times, less violently than before, then his pain washed over him like a dark, cold river, and he closed his eyes.
When he opened them again, and the chain was still swinging. The wind was howling, Avner's teeth were
chattering, and the boy did not know whether the laughter spilling from his throat was caused by joy or hysteria. But he did know that he had to get off this mountain, and fast. By morning, the only thing lodged in this link would be a hunk of frozen flesh.
Avner wrapped an arm around the outside of the icy loop, then pulled himself up until he could work a leg through the opening and straddle the bottom. The link was just tall enough that he could sit hunched inside it. He tried to examine his injured arm by moonlight, but the shadows under the platform were too thick to see clearly. All he could tell for certain was that it was horribly swollen, and he could not bend it from the elbow down.
"I sure hope Brianna's still alive," he whispered, not quite certain why he was afraid to speak out loud. If there had been any giants on the platform above, he would have heard their footsteps echoing through the timbers.
Avner drew his dagger and cut the sleeve away from his injured arm, then used the cloth to bind his arm to his side. Next, he took his rope off his shoulder and tied a series of loops. By the time he finished, he had a makeshift ladder of about a dozen feet, easily twice as long as he needed to reach from one link to the next
The boy passed the rope through the link above, pushing the line through one of the loops he had tied to secure it in place. He slipped his good arm, still trembling from the cold, into another loop and began to climb. The young thief moved quickly and efficiently, for many times he had used similar techniques to climb the exterior of some tower that supposedly could not be scaled—though he had seldom found anything inside worth the trouble. Once he had even used the method to climb from Earl Dobbin's well, after he had been forced to jump down the pit to elude a company of murderous guards.
To his surprise, Avner felt sad about the fate of the
lord mayor. He was not sorry the man was dead—the earl had certainly threatened to kill him enough times— but it seemed an era had passed. For as long as the boy could remember, he had been stealing from Dobbin Manor, and Earl Dobbin had been trying to catch him in the act. It had not been a game—the consequences of the king's law were too deadly for that—but the contest had been eminently fair. Now, with the lord mayor separated not only from his property but from his own limbs as well, there no longer seemed any point to stealing from Dobbin Manor. It was even possible the boy would be forced to rethink his ambitions—providing he didn't freeze to death on the side of this mountain first.
Fortunately, that was beginning to look less likely. Avner had only one link left before he climbed into the hoisting chain slot. He could see the iron plate that blocked the entrance to the fault cave, the moonlight glinting off the crossbar's white wood less than twenty feet above. Once he climbed through that hole and had solid timbers below his feet, he would march down the road as fast as he could. Even if it did not get him off the mountain quickly, it would at least warm him up enough to stop shivering.
Avner reached up to pass his makeshift ladder through the last link of the hoisting chain—then abruptly stopped and pulled the rope back down. Not far above, in the shadows beneath the crossbar, a pair of hands was emerging from the iron gate. They were gaunt and leathery, with knobby joints and long black talons the boy recognized as those of the ogre shaman. Even cold iron would not keep Goboka from his prize.
The Rabbit Ran
The runt had it easy, Morten thought. The giants had sewn Tavis into a cocoon of waterlogged deerskin, then tied him to a spit and hung him over the fire to roast. Morten they had stripped to his loincloth and smeared with rancid bear grease. The stuff smelled worse than a glacier skunk—worse, in fact, than a glacier skunk that had drowned in a fetid bog and floated to the surface after it decayed. Every time the bodyguard inhaled, his stomach threatened to purge itself and such a wave of nausea rolled over him that his legs nearly buckled.
Morten kept his teeth clenched and his knees locked, trying to hide his distress. Not only was he determined to deny his tormentors the satisfaction of seeing him suffer, he knew that showing his misery would only encourage the giants to smear him with substances even more repugnant. As Tavis's cocoon was tied to the spit, the scout had made the mistake of groaning in pain. Noote had ordered the deerskin cut away around the victim's face, so his cries would be more clearly audible when the flames began to roast him. So far, the groan had been the only sound to escape the runt's lips, but wisps of steam were just beginning to rise from the wet skins. The real pain would come later, when the leather began to shrink and his blood began to boil.
Morten did not see how he could save the runt. Noote's queen was a shrewd woman, and she clearly intended to steam Tavis as a warm-up for the morning's climactic torture, the "rabbit run." The hill giants would be lined up along both walls of the Fir Palace, their hands fastened behind their backs. Morten would be
released at the far end of the lodge. If he could run the entire length of the chamber and out the door without being kicked to death, he would be allowed to live—or so Noote claimed. If the bodyguard tried to save the scout, he would probably be killed before he had a chance to make the rabbit run.
In itself, that would not have bothered Morten. He had no interest in playing the queen's game, at least not for the stakes she had proposed. But if he could convince the giantess to wager Brianna's freedom as well, then he was determined to succeed. The run was the bodyguard's last chance to redeem himself for letting Goboka capture the princess, and he was not about to squander it on the scout.
After Ig had turned the spit for several minutes without drawing a single moan from Tavis, Noote grew impatient. He pulled the fomorian away from the flames and shoved him toward the log pile. "More wood!"
The chief, his eager face looming above the cooking fire, stood across the floor from where Morten was tied. His stout wife was at his side, clutching Brianna's rope-sheathed form in her pudgy fingers. Ribbons of early morning light were streaming down through the smoke hole, forming hazy blue halos around their knobby heads.
Ig returned with an armful of tree trunks. He dropped the load next to the fire, then put the smallest logs on the pyre.
"That'll do you no good," Morten called. He was yelling much louder than necessary, for his words were intended as much for the hide-swaddled scout as for Noote. 'Tavis won't scream."
"Will too," Noote growled. "Burning hurt."
"Maybe, but Tavis won't yell. He won't give you that satisfaction," the bodyguard maintained. "And I'm not going to make your rabbit run, either."
Noote scowled. "Not?"
The logs beneath Tavis began to burn. Ig left the rest of the trees on the ground and started to turn the spit.
"Firbolgs die with honor," Morten explained. "We don't beg for mercy. We don't show pain. We just die."
"Maybe we skin you alive," Noote warned. "That hurt plenty."
"What are you, fomorians?" Morten scoffed. "I'd have thought hill giants could do better than that."
Many of the giants snickered at their captive's defiance, but the bodyguard did not care. He knew their ridicule would soon change to disappointment. Whether Tavis was thief or hero—and Morten no longer knew which—the scout was a brave firbolg. He would die silently, especially if he understood that Brianna's life depended on it
"You might as well kill us now," Morten added. "We're not going to scream."
'You'll run, Morten," said the queen. "And Tavis Burdun will scream."
The giantess picked up one of the iron bars Ig used to stir the fire and placed the end in the glowing coals, then pulled the fomorian away from the spit and motioned for him to put more wood on the fire.
Morten smiled, then locked eyes with the queen and waited. He had spent enough time in Castle Hartwick to know that the first rule of kings, at least those who wanted to stay king very long, was to keep their earls happy. The giantess was not exactly a king and her followers were not exactly earls, but the bodyguard was willing to gamble that she understood this principle as well as he did.
Soon the steam stopped rising from Tavis's cocoon. The stitching at the seams began to stretch, the first sign that the hides were shrinking, and the leather on the bottom side started to blacken. The scout's face turned pink, but he clamped his jaw shut and showed no sign that he would yell.
"You see?" Morten said. "He's not going to scream."
A concerned murmur rustled through crowd of hill giants. "No fun," one of them protested. "Scream, stupid firbolg!"
Tavis's lips formed a smile. "It's not that hot," he said, speaking through clenched teeth. "Roasting firbolg stupid!"
"Yeah," agreed another giant. He pointed at Brianna. "Maybe girl scream!"
"No!" the queen thundered. She pulled Brianna closer to her chest. "We're taking her to the Twilight Vale."
Brianna's face, all that Morten could see of the princess, did not change expressions. She seemed far more concerned with Tavis's plight than what the giantess might have in mind for her.
"No fun," grumbled a giant. "Noote stupid."
When the big oaf turned away and others began to follow, Morten could not help smiling. Hill giants were like spoiled human children: one could always count on them to sulk.
The queen grabbed the poker she had placed in the fire, then thrust the handle into her husband's hand. "Call the rabbit run."
Noote stepped toward Morten, waving the poker's white-hot tip through the air. "Wait!" the chieftain yelled, addressing the backs of his departing subjects. "Time for run."
The giants paused, but only a few turned to face their chief. "Him not run," said one. "Firbolg too."
Noote grinned wickedly, then lowered the poker's tip and laid it against Morten's cheek. The firbolg heard a loud sizzle, then the sick odor of burning flesh filled his nose and his entire head burned with agony. He had to bite his tongue to keep from crying out, and even then he nearly choked on the silent scream rising into his throat. The pain filled his entire head, as though the god Vulcan had swung his flaming hammer into his skull.
When the agony had subsided enough that Morten could be sure he would not scream, he said, "I have no reason to run."
"Then Noote will give you a reason," growled the queen. She was so angry that she could not quite keep her voice from making the floor tremble. "You can run, or he'll burn your eyes out."
The bodyguard felt a cold sweat break out on his brow. It would be impossible to rescue Brianna if his captors blinded him. Still, he could not let them see his fear, or the princess was doomed.
Morten shrugged. "What use does a dead man have for eyes?"
The bodyguard looked away from the poker's white tip, distracting himself by fixing his attention on the spit. Tavis's blackened cocoon was now beginning to shrivel. From what Morten could see of the scout's face, he was suffering more from the shrinking leather than the heat. His cheeks had turned that peculiar crimson of someone being choked, and the veins in his temples were bulging.
Once again, the bodyguard found himself envious of the scout. From all appearances, the cocoon was squeezing Tavis's chest so tightly that the runt could not have screamed if he wanted to. But if Morten's eyes were burned out, he would have to rely on his own willpower to keep from yelling.
Noote kneeled beside Morten, then grabbed his head and twisted it toward the poker. "You 'fraid!" the chief insisted, moving the tip closer to the firbolg's eye. "Say it!"
"I'm not afraid," Morten replied. "But I will run—if you give me reason."
Noote stopped short of pressing the poker into the bodyguard's eye socket, but he continued to hold it so close Morten could feel the heat searing his eyeball. 'What?"
"The princess," the bodyguard suggested. "Put her at the other end of the palace. If I carry her out the door,
then we're both free." "Fun!" chortled a giant. "No!" burst the queen.
"Then burn my eyes out," Morten said. "I won't run for any other reason."
This occasioned so much grumbling and scuffling of giant feet that Morten feared the vibrations might cause the chief to inadvertently blind him. Fortunately, Noote's hand remained steadier than the dirt floor, and he continued to hold the glowing iron a mere finger's breadth from the bodyguard's eye. Sensing their chief's indecision, the giants whispered among themselves optimistically.
Finally, they broke into an excited chant, "Rabbit run, rabbit run!"
The chorus made Noote's mind up for him. He rose to his feet and tossed the poker aside, then held out his hand out to his wife. "Brianna," he demanded.
The queen shook her head. "Think of what it would mean if that little vermin succeeds—"
Noote grabbed his queen by her silver necklace and pulled her toward him. "Me chief!" he growled. "Chief want girl!"
The queen refused to yield her prize, even when the other giants gave an approving cheer and stepped forward to support Noote. Morten feared the confrontation would erupt into a full-fledged combat, which bothered him only because he remained tied to the post and would be powerless to protect Brianna. The chief leaned forward and whispered something into his wife's ear. She listened for a moment, the scowl never leaving her face, then slapped the princess into her husband's hand. The resulting cheer was so loud Morten felt it in his bones.
The queen glared at Noote until the deafening sound died away, then she ran her angry gaze over the crowd gathered around the cooking fire. "If that firbolg escapes, I'll crack every one of your skulls."
The giants quickly wiped the smiles from their faces, but the enthusiasm with which they began to bind each other's hands suggested they took the threat less than seriously. So did Morten, but for a different reason. Even if he managed to run the gauntlet and squeeze out the door with Brianna, he knew better than to think Noote would actually set them free. But once they were together, with his hands unbound, their situation would be better than it was now.
As Noote passed the princess's bound figure to another giant, Brianna asked, "What about Tavis? Won't two rabbits be more fun than one?"
Noote appeared to consider this, at least for the half moment it took him to spot the queen violently shaking her head. "No," the chief said. "Him sick. No fun to chase."
"I can make him better," Brianna insisted.
"No!" Noote boomed. The chieftain returned his attention to the giant to whom he had passed the princess, then pointed toward the other end of the lodge. "Hang her on wall down there."
The giant grinned, dangling the princess by the rope entwining her body. "Gar put her good and high."
Morten fought back the urge to despair, and immediately began thinking of ways to turn this new obstacle to his advantage. If he could find a long pole or spear, he might use it to lift the princess off her hook instead of trying to climb up the wall as the giants would expect, and that would cause a short period of confusion—confusion he could use to good advantage.
Once the giant had disappeared into the gloom at the other end of the lodge, Noote stepped behind Morten. Instead of untying his prisoner, the chief pulled the entire pole out of the ground and dragged the bodyguard toward the far end of the Fir Palace.
Morten glanced over his shoulder at the cooking fire. It pleased him to see his strategy working well enough
to keep Tavis alive. The scout's face had turned to a light shade of purple and his eyes had rolled back in his head, but the flames still had not burned through the shriveled leather of his cocoon. With luck, the bodyguard might save the scout on his way past—and that would be another surprise for the hill giants.
That was when Morten noticed an ogre warrior walking out of the gloom. The brute was striding down the center of the passage, both hands in plain sight, his purple eyes fixed straight ahead. Walking with him was Sart, the hill giant sentry that had fought Rog, but it was difficult to tell who was the prisoner of whom. Sart's eyes were fixed on the floor and he bore no weapon in his hands, while the ogre, who was also unarmed, kept his eyes fixed proudly ahead.
To Morten, it looked like the giant had failed in his sentry duties once again, and this time the lives he had endangered were those of the firbolg and his companions. At the very least, dealing with the ogre would cost valuable minutes—minutes that Tavis would spend roasting over the fire. At the worst, it would mean a premature end to the rabbit run when Noote and his queen learned Brianna had lied about Goboka's death.
Noote did not notice the ogre, but continued to drag Morten along until they had reached the far end of the lodge. There, he stopped and turned around to face his giants, leaving the firbolg half stooped over with the long stake still tied to his back.
"Ready for rabbit run?" the chieftain boomed. Then, when he was answered by nothing more than an aston-ished drone, he saw Sart coming toward him and demanded, "Who at High Gate?"
It was the ogre who answered. "High Gate Goboka's now." He waved his arm around the room. "All this be Goboka's, soon."
Noote bared his filed teeth in displeasure. "What you mean, ugly pip-squeak?" he demanded. "Goboka dead!"
The ogre's jaw dropped, and he knitted his sloped brow in confusion. He studied Noote for a moment, then his purple eyes twinkled with understanding. "Liar; fat giant!" he accused. "Goboka send me to talk."
The queen's eyes flashed toward the far end of the palace, where Brianna was probably hanging by now, then she narrowed her eyes and bit her lip in thought. Morten needed no magic to know she now realized the princess had lied about the shaman's demise.
The ogre fixed his purple eyes on the queen's face, then said, "Goboka say give Brianna, or Gray Wolves all dead by dusk."
Keeping her eyes fixed on the ogre, the queen leaned over to whisper in Noote's ear. If Morten wanted to keep the hill giants from returning Brianna to Goboka, he had to do something now.
Dragging the heavy pole along with him, Morten took a few quick steps and planted his heel in the ogre's ribs, pushing the brute to the ground with a powerful thrust. "If you want Brianna, you have to race me," he growled. "Make the rabbit run!"
"Big fun!" yelled a nearby giant.
Such a clamor broke out that Noote could only scowl in frustration as he tried to hear his whispering queen. Finally, he gave up and shrugged her off.
"Grab ogre!" he bellowed at Sart. "New game today: rabbit race!"
Morten told himself that racing the ogre would make it easier to rescue Brianna. With two rabbits in the race, he would be kicked by only half as many hill giants.
But the bodyguard didn't believe it.
When Avner heard the footsteps echoing out of the fault cave, his weary body jerked so hard that it nearly sent him plunging into the valley below. He braced his
hands against the wet timbers and carefully pushed away from the edge of the platform, at the same time trying to swallow the cold lump of panic that had risen into his throat.
The youth's concentration had been so consumed by the scene below, where the dark figures of Goboka's horde had quietly surrounded all the hill giant lodges, that he had entirely forgotten the possibility stragglers might be coming through the cave at dawn. Now he feared he would pay a terrible price for his oversight. Hiding was out of the question, since he had been peering over the edge of the timber platform, consequently lying in plain sight, when he heard the sound. Nor could he flee, since the only direction to go was down into the valley with the ogres.
Still, the youth was not about to give up. After Goboka had opened the gate, Avner had spent half the night clinging to the timbers beneath the platform, hiding from the ogre packs as they sporadically came slinking out of the cave. Only his terror and the pain of his broken arm kept him from freezing to death. Despite the ruthlessness with which their shaman was driving them, the brutes seemed as alert and as dangerous as ever, and the boy spent the entire time horrified that his teeth would start chattering and give him away, or that one of them would sense him shivering through vibrations in the platform's timber floor. But somehow he escaped detection, and they stopped coming, leaving only a pair of sentries behind to guard the cave mouth.
The young thief disposed of the first sentry by chirping softly until one of the brutes, no doubt thinking to make a meal of the birds nesting beneath the platform, stuck his head down to investigate. Avner attacked quickly and savagely, driving his dagger into his foe's exposed gullet. Leaving the blade buried there, he used his good hand to grab the stunned ogre's greasy topknot and pull him over edge. The warrior plummeted into the
dark night, the knife in his throat preventing him from voicing a scream that might draw the notice of his fellows below.
The ogre had not even hit bottom before the boy was silently climbing up through the chain slots. As expected, the second sentry was kneeling close to where his partner had disappeared. Although the brute's attention was fixed on the edge, he was not foolish enough to expose himself as his companion had done. Instead, he had a shaft nocked in his bow, and was listening for more sounds from beneath the platform. Moving as quietly as only a terrified thief can, Avner crept a half dozen steps across the platform, then pulled a poisoned arrow from the warrior's quiver and plunged the tip deep into his back.
Gasping in pain, the brute stood and spun toward his attacker in one swift motion. The youth dove into the fault cave and heard his foe's arrow clatter off the rocks above his head. By the time the boy stood and turned around, the warrior was lying on the platform, knocked unconscious by his own poison. Avner replaced his lost dagger with the warrior's bone knife, then pushed the ogre off the platform. That done, he crawled inside the fault cave to take refuge from the cold night.
After all that, the young thief had no intention of surrendering to the brute now stomping through the cave. He would at least go down fighting.
With his good hand, Avner pulled his bone dagger and spun around. His target was still hidden by the shadows of the fault cave, but the footsteps continued to grow louder. The youth cocked his arm back to throw, certain he could hit his foe by sound alone.
"Hold your weapon, my friend!" called a familiar voice. "I'm sorry I fell behind, but surely I don't deserve such a stern punishment!"
Avner lowered his arm. "Basil?"
"The one and the same."
The verbeeg stepped into the light at the cave mouth and squinted out into the morning. He looked about as haggard and cold as Avner felt, with a nose blackened by frostbite and hoarfrost hanging from his bushy eyebrows.
"What are you doing here?" Avner demanded.
The verbeeg looked hurt by the question. "Surely, you haven't forgotten our bargain!" he said. "Or are you hoping to claim all those books I stole for your own?"
"You can have 'em," Avner replied. "It's just that I thought you deserted us at the waterfall!"
"That's what the ogres thought, too—or I wouldn't be here now," Basil chuckled. He stuck his head out of the cave mouth and looked around. "Where's everyone else?"
"Down there." Avner pointed into the valley. "I think the hill giants have them, but not for long."
Basil's lip twisted into a sneer of disgust at the mention of hill giants, but he did not voice any opinions. The verbeeg stepped to Avner's side and peered down.
"I've been trying to figure out what to do," Avner said, "but I can't."
"Perhaps that's because there's not much you can do—especially with that arm." Basil shook his head at the situation below, then added, "We can only hope for the best—and be ready to help if it should come to pass."
Avner looked up at the verbeeg. "What do you mean?"
"From what we can see, it appears there will be a battle soon." As he spoke, the verbeeg turned around and began to study the hoisting chains and the heavy iron gate hanging below the cave mouth. "That'll be when our friends try to escape. If they're to succeed, it will be up to us to provide a quick exit."
"How?"
Basil pointed at Avner's rope, still tied into a makeshift ladder.
"We can start by hanging that rope over the side," the
verbeeg said.
Avner looked from the rope ladder, which he knew was not much longer than Basil was tall, to the enormous drop into the valley below. "You're mad!" he said. "Even with no knots, the rope will never reach that far."
"Then I suppose we'll have to make if longer."
The runecaster sat down next to the rope and opened the satchel where he kept his brushes and quills.
The ogre, now stripped of his clothes and smeared with foul-smelling grease, seemed unable to comprehend what was happening to him. He stood on the other side of Noote's kneeling figure, glaring up at the bellowing hill giants lined all along the Fir Palace's gloomy walls. He paid Morten no attention, as though he did not understand he would be competing against the firbolg, and had not even glanced over at the bodyguard.
Morten hoped the dazed expression on his foe's face meant the brute would meet a quick end. It was going to be difficult enough to weave his way through the forest of bolelike legs ahead, especially when they began kicking and stomping. Save for the alley down the center of the room, which he felt sure would be the quickest avenue to death, he could see no open ground at all, only huge fdthy feet with stumpy toes and broken yellow nails.
About halfway down the gauntiet, Tavis still hung over the cooking fire. Fortunately, once the hill giants had lost interest in steaming him, the fomorian cook had let the fire die down to glowing coals, and it seemed entirely possible that the scout would be alive when Morten reached him. Whether he would be strong enough to help free Brianna was another matter, but at least his presence might add to the confusion. The princess herself hung near the ceiling of the far wall, a distant cocoon
of rope illuminated by a single torch the giants had placed there so the rabbits would know where they were trying to go—though few expected them to live that long.
"Ready rabbits?" Noote asked.
Without waiting for a reply or offering any other warning, the chief lifted the hands he had placed in front of the two racers. Morten reacted first, sprinting forward without so much as a sideward glance. The giants roared their delight, filling the palace with a deafening rumble louder than any thunderstorm. The sound seemed to buffet the bodyguard like a powerful wind, threatening to sweep him from his feet.
The giants began to stomp, and before Morten knew it, the dirt floor was bucking beneath his feet like a collapsing rampart. The firbolg managed two steps before he bounced so high into the air that he lost his feel for the ground. He came down at an angle, arms flailing wildly, and crashed to the floor on his back.
The hill giants yelled even louder, shaking the walls so hard that the hide coverings flapped as though a terrible wind were tearing at them. As his tormentors moved in for the kill, Morten saw their heads forming a rough circle high above. He rolled sideways, narrowly saving himself as a huge foot crashed to the floor.
The impact bounced the firbolg into the air. He tried to gather his legs and felt as though he were trying to stand while tumbling down a steep hill. He managed to plant his feet on the ground, but his body's momentum carried him past his balance point and sent him sprawling. He glimpsed the ogre tumbling through the air beside him, then landed face first on the ground.
Something heavy crashed down on his back. Morten dug his fingers into the dirt and tried to pull himself forward, expecting to feel a large heel with all the enormous weight of hill giant behind it.
Instead, the ogre's powerful jaws bore down on the fir-
bolg's burly calf, sending sharp daggers of pain shooting up through his knee. The bodyguard howled in surprise and anger, though even he could not hear the cry above the din of the hill giants. He twisted around to grasp his attacker. The ogre pulled his head away from Morten's leg and spit a hunk of flesh from between his lips, then lowered his mouth to the firbolg's ankle.
Morten brought his foot up as hard as he could, driving the hard knob of his heel into his attacker's face. Unlike those of humans or firbolgs, ogre noses were filled with dozens of small bones, and the kick snapped them all like dry twigs. The ogre went slack; whether he was unconscious or dead did not matter to Morten. The brute was out of the race either way. The firbolg rolled, throwing the ogre's limp body off his back—then saw a giant's immense foot sweeping toward him.
The kick landed square in his ribs. The firbolg felt the air rush from his chest, then he and the ogre went sailing in different directions.
Morten crashed, back first, into the side of a giant's treelike leg. He felt something crack, like an inflexible trunk snapping in a heavy wind. A pained bellow reverberated above, louder even than the tremendous tumult of the other hill giant voices, and the fellow's knee buckled—not in a direction it normally bent, but sideways. The giant reflexively clutched at the joint, barely retaining his balance as he attempted the impossible maneuver with both hands still bound behind his back.
Morten slid to the ground, a terrible ball of dull, throbbing agony forming between his shoulder blades. The firbolg knew the impact had knocked something in his back terribly out of place, but he could not let that bother him now—not when he had such an opportunity to throw the hill giants into a confused panic. The bodyguard rolled onto his stomach and pushed himself to his hands and knees. He spun around until he saw the injured giant's good leg, then, without standing up, he
gathered his feet beneath him and drove his shoulder into it as hard as he could. Again the giant bellowed, but this time he also came down.
The effect was something like a tree toppling in an over-thick stand of woods. The fellow crashed into two more giants beside him, and they also fell, unable to catch themselves with their hands tied behind their backs. This pair unbalanced two more, who had to stop kicking long enough to regain their balance.
The opening that resulted wasn't much, but it was enough for the firbolg. He jumped to his feet and clambered away, dodging and weaving as hill giant feet lashed at him from all directions. He suffered several glancing blows that almost knocked him over, and twice he was struck so hard that he actually fell and tumbled through the swarm of legs, somersaulting across insteps and ricocheting off ankles. Each time, he managed to roll back to his feet and continue running. At first, he moved across the lodge toward a side wall, as though searching for a clear alley. Then he suddenly turned toward Brianna and darted into a dense thicket of hill giant legs, where the crowd was packed so thickly that the giants smashed each other's shins more often than their target. Even when a foot did catch Morten, it did not have much momentum, and so the blow was not very painful.
By the time the firbolg neared the middle of the lodge, the hill giants ahead were beginning to bump each other aside, trying to create enough space around themselves so they could land a solid attack if the rabbit came their way. Morten dodged back toward the center of the room, running straight for the shimmering orange light of the cooking fire.
As the firbolg broke free of the thicket of giant legs, he was surprised to see Tavis no longer hung over the fire. Ig had already taken the scout's spit down and was using a bone butcher knife to cut the cocoon apart. Long
strings of drool were dripping from the fomorian's mouth, and he was licking his twisted lips with a long gray tongue.
"Leave him alone!" Morten bellowed.
The bodyguard started to charge the cook, hoping that the fomorian was typical for his race and coward enough to bluff away easily. Otherwise, Morten would have to abandon the scout. He could not afford the time it would take to kill the fomorian.
The firbolg suddenly found his way blocked by the fomorian dancing slave. Although hardly as big as a hill giant, she was still much larger than Morten, and he could not easily dodge around her.
"Go!" She thrust his battle-axe into his hand. "We take care of Tavis Burdun."
Morten stared at the weapon in confusion, so stunned by the unexpected help that it took him a moment to realize the fomorian slaves had become his allies. The firbolg accepted his axe and started to step past the fomorian, intending to rush into the crowd on the other side of the lodge. Before he made it all the way around her enormous hip, the hides on the wall ahead were ripped away with a tremendous whoosh. The firbolg caught a glimpse of towering fir trees silhouetted against a blue sky, then hill giants began to spin around, shouting and screaming in astonishment. The tumult lasted only a matter of seconds before giants began to collapse, the black fletching of ogre arrows protruding from wounds that, on their huge bodies, seemed mere pinpricks.
Deciding it wiser to risk hill giant feet than ogre arrows, Morten spun around. The conditions on that side of the lodge were no better. Goboka had planned his attack well, catching his enemies in a deadly cross fire.
Noote's angry voice came bellowing from the other end of the lodge. "Forget game! Fight ogres!"
Hoping the giants ahead could hear their chief, Morten turned and ran for Brianna's end of the lodge. At first, Noote's followers seemed confused about what was happening. While their fellows dropped all around them, many continued to stomp and kick at Morten, angrily bellowing about the game being unfair when he used his axe to fend off their attacks. Then, as their unconscious fellows piled on top of each other, the giants seemed to realize the firbolg was not their greatest problem. They began to work feverishly to unbind each other's hands. Morten even began to help, cutting their hands free as he ran past.
To the bodyguard's relief, Goboka's attack was concentrated near the center of the lodge. Fifty paces down from the cooking fire, the walls remained intact, and the giants were moving toward the battle with their clubs and wooden shields. Occasionally, one of these warriors took a swipe at Morten, but the firbolg had little trouble dodging these halfhearted attacks—especially when the aggressor was invariably chastised for wasting time. They had ogres to kill!
By the time Morten reached the far end of the lodge, it was more or less empty. All the giant warriors were back near the cooking fire, bellowing insults at their attackers and trying to work up the courage to raise their shields and charge into the onslaught of ogre arrows. All that remained here, in the relatively untouched corners of the lodge, were a handful of wrinkled giants too old to do much of anything except watch the clan's whimpering children. None of them made any move to stop Morten as he approached Brianna.
"Are you all right up there?" the bodyguard called.
"Better than you," Brianna warned. "Look behind you."
The floor began to tremble as someone broke into a charge. Morten spun around to see Noote and his queen rushing toward him. The bodyguard could not imagine
how they had pushed their way through the swarm of giants in the center of the lodge, but there could be no denying they had.
Cursing under his breath, Morten braced himself to meet the charge. One giant he could handle, but two— his silent complaint was interrupted by the muffled strum of a bowstring. The queen cried out in shock and began to stumble. She managed to take one more step before collapsing on her face, the black fletching of an ogre arrow protruding from one enormous buttock.
The bodyguard felt the cold fingers of panic slipping around his heart, at least until he realized that it wasn't an ogre that had fired the shaft. Tavis's crimson-skinned figure stood a short distance beyond the queen, with a scrap of filthy hide tied loosely about his waist and the fomorians standing to either side of him. The scout was trying to nock another arrow, though he was so weak that he could not stand without leaning against the leg of the female dancing slave.
"Save your strength!" Morten yelled.
The bodyguard allowed Noote to continue his charge. Then, when the hill giant stooped over to reach for him, the firbolg hurled his axe. The weapon tumbled through the air once, then lodged its blade deep in the chieftain's forehead.
Morten dove away, catching a glimpse of Noote's eyes growing blank as he pitched forward. The hill giant's body did not fall clear to the ground, instead lodging against the wall below Brianna's feet.
The firbolg picked himself up, then climbed Noote's back and stood on the hill giant's shoulders as he plucked Brianna off the wall.
"Nice axe work," the princess commented. "Now let's get out of here—and fast!"
Morten glanced over his shoulder and saw that some of the hill giants had decided it would be easier to go out the entrance than to try squeezing out the holes the
ogres had opened in the center of their palace. About two dozen of the huge warriors were rushing toward the exit, bellowing war cries and whirling clubs over their heads.
"Fools," Morten commented. He began to unwrap Brianna. "Goboka will expect that."
"But I bet he won't be expecting that, will he?"
The princess pulled her arm free of her loosened bindings and pointed to Tavis. The scout and his fomorian rescuers were rushing straight toward the side of the room, desperately attempting to avoid the giants charging down the center of the lodge. As Morten and Brianna watched, the fomorians linked arms and lowered their shoulders, then hurled themselves through the wall with a tremendous crash.
"Let's go," Brianna ordered. She pulled the rope off her legs and tossed it aside, then started to run. "We don't want to get left behind."
16
Unexpect e5 HeLp
A few moments after the fomorians opened the gaping hole in the side of the Fir Palace, Tavis and his companions rushed through it. The scout ran between Morten and Brianna, who had snatched up two battered hill giant bucklers to screen the trio's flanks. Although the shields were as large and heavy as tower doors, the princess's ancestral strength allowed her to carry hers as easily the bodyguard did his. The small company did not bother to guard against frontal assaults, for their fomorian allies had ripped a huge section of hides from the lodge wall as they exited, then cut a broad swath through the ogre lines by hurling this tattered canopy over the heads of their would-be attackers.
Tavis and his companions made it only three steps out of the lodge before ogre arrows began to pound the shields on both flanks. The assault sounded like some sort of crazy drumbeat, reverberating through the wood with an erratic cadence of thumps and thuds. Tiny splits appeared in the thick planks, each sprouting the dark tip of an iron arrowhead. The venomous points were not yet penetrating far enough to be dangerous, but the scout knew that soon a shaft would split one of the gray slats and pierce the flesh of a shield-bearer.
Though Tavis was not carrying either of the heavy shields, he found it difficult to keep pace with his companions. Both his mangled arm and the gash in his side throbbed with a deep, boiling pain, while Noote's torture had scalded his skin to such a degree that he felt as though wasps were stinging every inch of his body. But his thirst caused the worst suffering. The scout had lost
so much sweat during the steaming that he felt like he had not drunk water in a tenday. He could hardly draw breath past his swollen tongue, and his joints burned with the fiery ache of fever. Even the spots swimming before his eyes seemed ready to sink into darkness.
Despite his weariness, the scout nocked an arrow as they stepped onto the canopy the fomorians had laid over the ogre lines. Soon, the warriors flanking them would be in position to try for rear shots. He had to be ready to answer. Trying to summon the strength to draw Bear Driller's bowstring, Tavis glanced over his shoulder—then a tremendous echoing crash rolled over him as the Fir Palace came apart, untanned hides and fir trunks flying in every direction.
At first, Tavis thought Goboka had blasted the lodge with a spell—until he saw the hill giants, following the • example of their fomorian slaves, come crashing through the walls. The whole lodge seemed to be exploding, like a hive no longer able to contain its angry bees, and suddenly there were giants everywhere.
The rain of arrows pounding the trio's shields dwindled to a trickle, then died away completely as the ogres scrambled to dodge the canopies of tattered hides and splintered tree trunks being hurled at them by the hill giants. Morten and Brianna tossed the heavy bucklers aside and, dragging Tavis between them, scrambled away from the ogre lines, following the fomorians toward the nearest stand of fir trees.
As the trio sprinted into the copse, powerful jolts and heavy shocks began to rumble from the direction of the Fir Palace. Tavis glanced back and saw that the ogres had recovered from the initial shock of their foes' charge and were again firing. A handful of hill giants already lay sprawled on the ground, and several others were taking their last lurching steps. But many more were still charging forward behind their huge shields, their long legs carrying them toward their enemies with
incredible speed.
A different kind of crashing began to roll across the field: the sound of massive clubs smashing anything that might conceal an ogre archer. Fir trees came tumbling down, boulders went clattering across the valley floor, hillocks of soft ground burst apart. Tavis and his companions did not tarry to watch the carnage, but continued deeper into the stand. The sudden reversal of the battle's course made little difference to them. They had to put as much distance between themselves and the victors, whether ogres or hill giants, as possible.
By the time they finally caught the fomorians, Tavis could hardly stand. His vision had narrowed to a long black tunnel, his shaking legs could barely support him, and his throat was so swollen he feared it would close up entirely. Fighting the urge to collapse, he staggered over to the bank of the tiny stream where their allies had stopped, then threw himself face first into the cold waters.
When he finished drinking, the scout found Brianna and Morten standing next to him. From outside the thicket, the constant thunder of hammering clubs and falling giants suggested the combat had grown even more intense during the few moments it had taken him to quench his thirst.
Ig and the dancing girl had crossed to sit on the opposite shore and were calmly pulling apart the rotten carcass of a deer they had apparently brought from the Fir Palace in the cook's shoulder satchel. Although the meat was so putrid that even an ogre wouldn't have eaten it, Tavis was not surprised to see the pair gorging themselves on it. The fomorian diet consisted of the most noxious, virulent refuse that they could find—and if something was too fresh, they would often take it home to rot for a time.
Brianna placed her hand on Tavis's shoulder. "If you've quenched your thirst, I should cast my spells."
The scout was disappointed to see that the princess did not meet his eyes. He started to ask if something was wrong, then thought better of it and remained silent. Of course something was wrong. Last night, Brianna had learned the truth about her father's betrayal. Tavis could only guess how that knowledge made her feel—sad, angry, lost perhaps—but he knew for certain that those emotions would be as powerful as the terrible despair he was feeling over Avner's loss.
In the back of his mind, the scout kept hearing the boy's footsteps padding through the thicket. He half expected the young thief to appear and announce that the whole thing had been an elaborate joke, but Tavis knew that would not happen. Thousand-foot falls were not jokes. Avner was gone, and all the wishful thinking in the world would not bring him back.
When Tavis made no move to lie down, Brianna gently pushed him onto his back and purified his injuries with blessed water, then laid her amulet on his stomach wound. "I'll start with this one."
"No." Tavis moved the talisman up to his sternum. The stomach wound was by far the most dangerous and agonizing of his injuries, but he didn't care. He had no intention of allowing Brianna to go the way of Avner, and he would be better able to defend her if his bruised chest did not interfere with drawing his bowstring. "If you only have two spells, cast them on my chest and my arm."
Brianna frowned. "This is only a bruise," she said, touching his discolored sternum. "It isn't dangerous."
"It hinders me when I pull my bow," the scout replied. "And right now, thaf s more dangerous than any wound I have."
The princess nodded, then did as he asked. Tavis could not help hissing as Hiatea's symbol began to glow with white heat, searing his already scalded skin.
The sound drew gap-toothed smiles from both fomorians.
"I thought we were on the same side," Tavis complained.
"Pain good," replied the female. She gave Ig a coy smile, then added, "Pain mean you alive."
"Then maybe you'd like some of your own," growled Morten.
"Don't mind them," Tavis said. As he spoke, the color of his bruised chest was lightening from blackish-purple to pale crimson, and he could feel the goddess's strength coursing through his bones. "That's just their nature."
"If you say so." The bodyguard stood and started back toward the battle. 'Til go see what's happening at the Fir Palace."
As Morten left, Brianna moved her talisman to the scout's arm and cast her second healing spell. To the fomorians' obvious disappointment,. Tavis remained quiet as the scarred flesh on his forearm slowly smoothed itself back to normal. He felt more of Hiatea's magic flowing up through his shoulder, and even the weakness caused by his dehydration seemed to fade.
Brianna left her talisman in place for several minutes. Only after the magical glow had faded and the silver had turned cold did she take it from Tavis's arm.
"I hope that's better." She still did not meet his eyes.
The scout stood, then grabbed Bear Driller and drew the bowstring back. The effort caused a little pain in all his wounds, but he now felt more than strong enough to nock a few ogre arrows on its string.
"I should be able to kill a few ogres now," he said.
"Then you'll need some arrows," Morten said, returning from his observation post. He was carrying a full quiver of ogre arrows in one hand and stone hand axe in the other. "I took these from a dead ogre at the edge of the stand."
"The battle's still going strong?" Tavis asked. The scout noticed that Morten's throat wound was about to fester again, for it had grown red and swollen. "There's
no sign that the ogres are coming after us?"
"They couldn't if they wanted to." The bodyguard handed the quiver to Tavis. "The giants are going after them like bears after dogs."
The report alarmed the scout. "What about the shaman?" he asked. "Isn't he doing anything to help his warriors?"
Morten shook his head. "Not that I can see."
"We'd better get out of here, fast," Tavis said. "If Goboka's not helping his warriors, he's looking for us."
Tavis turned to leave, but when the fomorians stood up to follow, Morten grabbed the scout by the shoulder. "Are we going to let them come with us?"
"Ooo help you," the female reminded Morten. "You help Ooo and Ig."
"Smashing palace wall easy," said Ig, stepping to Ooo's side. "But need Tavis Burdun to leave valley."
Tavis nodded. "It's a fair bargain."
"I suppose so." The bodyguard stepped close to Tavis, then spoke more quietly. "But be careful. You can't trust fomorians."
"They deserve a chance," Brianna said. She glanced at Tavis, then looked away. "I recall both of us saying the same thing about a certain firbolg—and look how wrong we were."
"This is different," Morten grumbled.
Tavis smiled to himself, then led the way through the thicket. With Ig half staggering and half hopping along behind them, there was no possibility of moving with any kind of stealth. The scout tried to reduce the likelihood of ambush by traveling as far ahead of his companions as practical, but he did not think his efforts would do much good. The fomorian's gait was so clumsy that, even with the din of battle still raging around the Fir Palace, a careful listener almost anywhere in the valley would hear him crashing through the thicket. Tavis tried not to worry about the noise, since there was little he or
anyone else could do about it.
In contrast to Ig, Ooo moved with the uncanny silence typical to most fomorians. Her immense figure seemed to glide through the thicket in slow motion. She made no wasted gestures, placed each foot with precision and care. She was so graceful that the scout even began to think of her as beautiful—though in a dangerous sort of way. Tavis had seen enough carnage wrought by her race to know fomorians used their remarkable stealth for purposes as twisted as their forms.
They reached the edge of the stand. The scout motioned for the others to wait, then stood behind a fir bole and studied the ground ahead. The small field was dotted with boulders, tufts of long yellow-green grass, and bright clumps of dainty alpine flowers. There was no sign of the battle between Goboka's horde and the hill giants, but Tavis knew better than to assume there were no ogres nearby just because he did not see them.
Across the small field, a ridge of barren bedrock curved toward the cliff with the High Gate. The granite face stood at such an angle that neither the fault cave nor the timber road was visible, but the scout could see a well-traveled giant path leading up the crest of the ridge. From what little he remembered of the journey down from the gate, the trail was both long and arduous, and they would be visible for much of its length.
They could not risk ascending it during the day. Goboka would certainly see them, and with Ig staggering along in their company, they were not fast enough to flee the shaman. It would be better to wait until dark. He and Ooo would sneak up the trail first, slaying any sentries that the victors of today's battle sent to guard the gate. Brianna and the others would follow later.
As the scout turned to tell the others of his decision, a sharp thunk sounded on the tree behind him. He dropped to the ground, an arrow already nocked. Something hissed past his head and thumped into the tree
bole ahead, then bounced to the ground. It was not an ogre's arrow, as he had expected. The missile was a small round rock, such as might be hurled from a sling.
Tavis's first thought was of Avner, but of course that was ridiculous. The boy was dead.
Another stone hissed overhead and bounced off the same tree, pitting the bark just inches above the mark left by the first. The slinger was either missing on purpose, Tavis realized, or had just gauged the distance to his target. The scout scrambled into a seated position, looking in the direction from which the stones had come.
Across the field, a human boy stood behind a boulder, using one arm to gesture at Tavis. His other arm was bound to his side as though it had been injured.
Tavis did not lower his bow. Avner had fallen a thousand feet, and if his body was now standing across the field waving, the scout could think of only one explanation. Goboka had animated the boy's corpse. The shaman was trying to lure them into a trap.
Tavis pulled his bowstring back.
Avner's eyes widened, and he ducked down behind the boulder. "Whatever it is, I didn't do it!"
"Avner?" Tavis gasped. The boy certainly didn't sound dead.
"What are you, blind?" The youth peered over the top of the boulder. "Of course it's me."
"But Kol... Rog pushed you off the platform!"
"Do I look like I fell a thousand feet?" Avner cautiously rose so that Tavis could see his entire body.
The scout had to admit that the boy looked far too healthy to have suffered the fall. Even if Kol had cushioned the youth's landing, the impact would have twisted his body into something more akin to the fomorians. Tavis lowered his bow. Even if there had been reason to loose an arrow, he could not have hit his target. He was so filled with relief that his hands were trembling.
"How did you—"
"Later. There are ogres about," the boy said. "That's why I was trying to get your attention without shouting."
'That wouldn't have worked anyway," Tavis replied, listening to Ig come crashing up behind him. "Stealth is no longer our strong point."
"Then we'd better hurry," Avner said. "I don't know how long Basil will wait. He's nervous about the ogres."
"Basil?" asked Morten, joining the scout. The bodyguard sounded as suspicious as Tavis had been a moment earlier.
"He still wants his books," Avner explained. "Now, are you coming or what? It's not like I'm charging a toll."
Tavis stood and led the way across the field. Once they were past the ridge and had a clear view of the High Gate, he could see why Avner was concerned. On top of the granite ridge, well beyond the bend where the scout could have seen them from the fir stand, a dozen ogres where sprinting toward the timber road. Goboka was behind them, strolling up the hill at a more leisurely pace. Fortunately for the scout and his friends, the cliff was casting a dark shadow over their group. Even if the shaman had heard them calling to each other, it would be difficult for him to find them in the deep shade.
No sooner had the scout reached this conclusion than the shaman's head slowly turned toward their position. Despite the distance, Tavis could see a fierce purple light gleaming in his eyes, and he knew that the ogre had spied them.
"He sees us!" Brianna gasped.
"He can't!" Avner replied. "I was hiding in these same shadows when he started up the trail, and he looked right at me without doing anything. Why should he see us now?"
"Perhaps because of this," said Morten. The bodyguard held his fingers out for the others to see. They were covered with yellow ichor from the sore on his
throat, which had begun to fester again. "I felt the wound swelling as we escaped the Fir Palace. It started to ooze right before he looked down at us."
"You think he's tracking us through the bite?" Brianna asked.
Morten nodded. "It explains how he reacted so quickly when we rescued you on the glacier." The bodyguard fixed his eyes on the ground. "My wound was festering then, too."
Tavis cursed under his breath. "That explains why he didn't kill you on Coggin's Rise," the scout surmised. "He knew that if anyone came after Brianna, you'd be among them."
Tears of shame began to roll down Morten's cheeks. "I should have realized it earlier."
"Why? None of us did," Tavis said. He placed a reassuring hand on the bodyguard's arm. "It's not your fault."
"And it's not going to stop us from escaping," Avner added. "Goboka and his ogres have a long climb."
"And we have an even longer one—with them ahead of us," Morten countered. He looked up at the craggy ridge above. "It won't be easy to fight our way up that."
"We don't need to. Basil will lower a rope, then he's got something figured that'll get us up in no time." Avner pointed across a small field to the base of the cliff, where the mangled bodies of Kol and Rog lay in a heap below the High Gate. "All we have to do is run over there."
The youth started toward the cliff, trotting across the valley on a course roughly parallel to the trail the ogres were climbing to the base of the timber road. As Tavis and the others followed, the scout glanced up and saw Goboka watching them with a thoughtful expression. The shaman glanced toward the platform outside the High Gate and looked back to them.
Goboka pointed his finger down the trail, to where a
rocky slope spilled down from the ridge crest, directly above the small field Tavis and his companions had to cross. The shaman cried out in the guttural language of his race. A deep, pulsing vibration shot through the floor of the valley, then a deafening crack rang off the canyon walls. Huge boulders began to slip free of the scarp face and tumble down the steep hillside.
"He's trying to cut us off!" Tavis yelled. "Run faster!"
They broke into a sprint, their eyes fixed on the hillside above. The landslide built slowly, for the bedrock ridge did not crumble easily and would not have broken apart at all save for the incredible power of Goboka's magic. As the boulders went bouncing down the scarp, they occasionally knocked more rocks loose, but the result was nothing like the cascade of loose stone that had nearly killed Tavis in Runolf's couloir. By the time the small company's leaders, Avner and Brianna, reached the field's edge, less than a dozen boulders were tumbling down the slope above them.
Goboka's voice rang out again, and another tremendous crack rang through the valley. This time, his spell was more successful. Near the crest of the ridge, a curtain of powdered rock shot into the air, then a mountainous slab of granite came free and slid downslope. It began to break apart, producing a tremendous rock-slide. The cloud of rock dust rolled down the scarp and spread out over the field like a gray, bitter-smelling fog.
Morten rushed up and took Tavis's arm, half dragging the scout into the choking haze ahead. "Let me help you along, runt!"
As they rushed across the field, the scout found himself gagging on the billowing dust. He could not see Brianna and Avner—though he hoped they had already cleared the danger. He and Morten veered away from the ridge as much as possible. Even so, dirt and gravel, surging ahead of the main avalanche, pelted their flanks, while boulders came bouncing past
their heads with alarming frequency. Above the roar, Tavis heard the arrhythmic beat of Ig's gait crashing along behind them. Ooo was gliding along with the fomorian, cursing his three mismatched legs and herself for staying at his side.
Tavis heard a dull thud as a small boulder, no larger than a human head, ricocheted off Morten's shoulder. The bodyguard groaned and stumbled. Without slowing down, the scout leaned into his companion's flank and propped him up. Together they staggered forward until the dust began to clear and no more stones came bouncing past. A short distance ahead Brianna and Avner stood on a gentle rise, safely beyond the rockslide.
A loud crack sounded behind Tavis. Ig yelled in pain, then there was a crash as the two fomorians fell to the ground. The scout whirled around and saw the dust-blurred shape of the fomorian cook lying on the ground, his hand pressed to a dripping head wound. Ooo was a short distance away, kneeling and stunned. A churning wall of stone was roaring down the slopeto swallow them.
Tavis started to rush back to help, but Morten's hand restrained him. "There's no time."
Realizing the wisdom of the bodyguard's words, Tavis shouted, "Ooo, get up! Ig needs help!"
The scout's warning roused both fomorians. Ig pushed himself up enough to prop his shortest leg beneath his body, but seemed unable to rise farther without teetering like a drunken hill giant. Ooo did better, leaping to her feet in a single graceful motion. When she turned toward Ig and saw the wall of stone boiling toward her, her eyes grew as large as moons. There was a good chance that both she and Ig could escape if she helped him, but Ooo simply turned toward Tavis.
She began to run, calling over her shoulder, "Goodbye, Ig."
Ig raised his head to look at her back. "Good-bye,
Ooo." Then, as the rockslide swallowed him up, he added, "Coward hag!"
Ooo danced past the two firbolgs with no sign of remorse for Ig's death. "Hurry!" The fomorian pointed toward the ridge above, where the ogres ahead of Goboka had drawn to within a few hundred paces of the timber road. "Not much time."
After casting a last glance at the talus pile where Ig lay buried, Tavis started across the last dozen paces to where the giants lay. Basil's voice echoed down from the High Gate platform.
"Stand clear!"
The scout looked up in time to see a dark circle of cord spinning down from above. At first, he did not understand what Basil was doing, for he had never seen a rope that could reach such a distance. But the spool kept descending, the line growing impossibly long as coil after coil unfurled, until the last loop opened and the end of the rope snapped to a stop just a few paces away.
"That's some rope," Morten observed.
"It sure is," Tavis replied.
"It's magic," Avner explained impatiently. "Come on!"
The youth led the way past the jumbled hills of flesh and bone that were the remains of Rog and Kol. He stopped about fifteen paces from the cliff face, where the rope hung with several loops tied into the last twenty feet of the line. When Tavis followed and looked up, it did not seem the cord was dangling from the High Gate so much as ascending straight into the sky.
"You two first," Tavis said, motioning to Brianna and Avner.
"No," Avner said. "Basil said the two heaviest people should go up first."
Ooo did not need a second invitation. She stepped over to the line and grabbed a loop, then quickly pulled herself up to make room for Morten. The bodyguard was more reluctant.
"That rope doesn't look strong enough to hold Ooo alone," the firbolg said, eyeing the line suspiciously.
"Don't worry, Basil's taken care of everything." Avner held a loop open for the firbolg's foot. "Just climb in."
The bodyguard secured his hand axe beneath the greasy cord serving as his belt, then placed his foot in the noose and climbed into position below Ooo.
"Snap the rope twice," Avner called. "Hold on tight."
The fomorian plucked the rope as instructed. The resulting vibration sent a deep, sonorous hum singing across the meadow, then the muted rattle of chains rolled down from the High Gate. Ooo and Morten shot upward, their quivering cries of astonishment trailing after them. A distant tolling, not unlike the knell of an alarm bell, echoed over the valley.
"What's that?" Brianna asked.
"You'll see in a second," Avner said. "But right now, we'd better step back."
By the time they did as the boy suggested, Tavis could see the source of all the clamor. The High Gate and its chains were sliding down the face of the cliff, trailing a long dark cord. Apparently, Basil had run the other end of the rope through one of the iron hooks set into the cliff above the fault cave, then tied it to the hoisting chains and cut them loose. Now the entire gate assembly was plunging groundward, serving as a counterweight to pull the immense bulk of Ooo and Morten up to the platform.
Realizing what would happen when the immense weight hit the ground, Tavis pulled Avner and Brianna behind a boulder. The gate and chains smashed down a second later. The resulting crash was so loud they didn't even hear it; their ears simply began to ache with terrible, ringing pain. They were bucked high into the air and came down sprawled atop each other. Sheets of red gore, all that remained of Rog and Kol's crushed bodies, sprayed over the top of boulder and coated the field for
dozens of paces around.
Tavis looked up. Ooo and Morten, so distant that they appeared to be nothing more than blobby shadows with arms and legs, were scrambling over the edge of the platform. At the other end of the hanging road, the first ogre was just setting foot onto the timbers and starting up toward the fault cave.
The scout felt Avner tugging on his arm. When he looked down, he saw the boy's lips moving but heard nothing. The ringing in his ears was so loud he could hardly hear his own thoughts, much less someone's words. The youth gave up trying to talk and ran toward the gate, which lay smashed into a dozen pieces. Avner climbed up a hoisting chain to where the rope had been connected to the gate and began to untie it. Just above the knot he was working on, there was a series of loops similar to those in which Morten and Ooo had ridden up to the platform.
Tavis climbed up the hoisting chain before Brianna, taking the highest position on the rope himself. It appeared that Basil and the others would have to pull them up to the platform by hand. The scout didn't know how long that would take, but feared the ogres would be waiting at the top. He certainly did not want the princess to be the first one they plucked off the rope.
Once Avner and Brianna had secured themselves beneath him, Tavis jerked the line as Ooo had done earlier. The trio did not shoot into the sky as the fomorian and Morten had, but rose rapidly and steadily. At first, the ascent was rather painful, for the rope dragged them along the cliff face, scraping their skin raw. They soon learned to work together to keep the soles of their feet pressed against the stone, so that they found themselves more or less running up the granite wall.
Tavis spent most of the trip craning his neck in an effort to see what Goboka and his ogres were doing. He quickly lost sight of the warriors as the last one started
up the timber road, but the shaman himself was simply standing on the ridge watching them. The scout would have preferred to see the brute waddling up the trail as fast as his stubby legs would carry him. If Goboka was not worried, then Tavis was.
As the underside of the platform grew larger, the ringing in the scout's ears grew fainter. By the time he glimpsed flashes of Basil's hands pulling the rope up through the chain slots, Tavis could hear—not quite normally, but well enough to communicate.
"Where are the ogres?" he yelled.
"Close, but we have time," came the response.
"Not enough,"Tavis growled. "Without the gate, they'll catch us in the cave."
"No, they won't," Avner said proudly. "Once we're up, just start running. Leave the rest to Basil and me."
"If it's all the same to you, I think I'll have Bear Driller ready," Tavis replied.
The scout pulled his bow off his shoulder. As Basil raised him through the chain slot, he jumped onto the platform, already nocking a black shaft. He slipped past his three panting companions and took aim down the road. The ogres were less than fifty paces away, easily within arrow range, but their bows remained slung over their backs and they were carrying hand axes or warhammers instead. Tavis quickly realized the reason for their choice of weaponry. If they shot the people hauling the rope up, they would send Brianna plunging to her death—and that was the last thing Goboka wanted.
Tavis had no such concerns about the welfare of the ogres. He loosed his first shaft and dropped the leader of the pack. The others leaped over him and continued charging. As the scout nocked his second shaft, he heard Avner scrambling onto the platform. Taking his own advice, the youth rushed straight into the fault cave.
Tavis fired again, dropping another ogre. The next
two brutes kept coming, their purple eyes gleaming with bloodlust.
Brianna jumped onto the platform and rushed into the cave after Avner, yelling, "I'll make us a light!"
Tavis nocked another arrow. The ogres were less than thirty steps away.
Before the scout could fire, Basil brushed past him. "You may as well save your arrow!"
The verbeeg kneeled at the edge of the platform where it joined the hanging road, then pulled his dagger and began to carve. Tavis peered over Basil's shoulder and saw that the runecaster had already cut an elaborate symbol into the wood and was just etching the last line. ' "Go!" Basil urged.
Tavis started to back toward the cave, then thought better of it and glanced toward Goboka. The shaman remained where he had been standing all along, but was now stretching one arm toward the platform.
Morten started to scream, but the cry quickly changed to a choking gurgle. Tavis swung around to see an ogre's gnarled fingers shooting from the sore on the bodyguard's throat. An eerie blue aura of magical energy was dancing over the digits, crackling and snapping like lightning. In the next instant, the shaman's entire hand appeared, its black talons straining for Basil's back. Morten began to stumble forward against his will, as though Goboka were pulling him toward the runecaster.
The bodyguard dropped to his knees behind Basil. In words so garbled Tavis could barely understand them, he gurgled, "Throw me over!"
Goboka's arm stretched forward and ripped Basil away from his work.
"Do it!" Morten urged.
The scout glanced down the road and saw that the ogres were still twenty paces away. "No." Tavis reached down and jerked the hand axe from
Morten's makeshift belt, then brought the blade down on the ichor-covered appendage protruding from the bodyguard's throat. The blow severed the arm with a sort of wet crackle. The stump of the limb receded into the festering sore from which it had come, and a pained wail rang out from the ridge.
Tavis glanced toward the sound and saw Goboka clutching his shoulder. Even from so far away, thereout could see that nothing hung below the elbow.
"Give me that!" Morten growled.
Tavis felt the axe being ripped from his hand, then saw Morten charge down the road to meet the ogres.
"Come back, Morten!" Tavis yelled.
"I can't finish the rune with you down there!" Basil added. "You'll be killed."
"That what he wants, verbeeg," Ooo said. "Finish rune."
"No," Tavis replied. "We can cure—"
Ooo shoved her way past the scout, nearly knocking him from the platform. "No time for stupid feelings."
The fomorian snatched Basil's dagger and, as Morten crashed into the ogre pack, carved the rune's last line.
A coating of bright green moss instantly spread down the path. The timbers began to rot, dropping away in a steady stream of decomposing matter. A deep groan sounded from the wooden buttresses, then the hanging road tilted steeply, spilling Morten and the ravaged ogre pack toward the valley floor.
Ooo dropped the dagger at Basil's side. "Escape complete. Now bargain done." The fomorian stepped into the fault cave. Without looking back, she called, "Good-bye, Tavis Burdun."
Goboka Retuuns
From deep in the forest echoed a loud, sharp thump, then something began to crash through the underbrush toward them. Too exhausted to leap up, Tavis and his three companions slowly gathered their weapons and dragged themselves to their feet.
"Do we run or fight?" asked Avner.
"I can't do either—at least not well," Basil complained. "I'm too tired."
The company had been on the move for two solid days and had glimpsed the distant figure of a lone, one-armed ogre often enough to know Goboka was dogging their trail. Apparently, the rest of the ogres—if any had survived the battle at Noote's lodge—remained trapped in the hill giant valley, for the shaman had no warriors with him. To make certain, Tavis had even circled back twice and found signs of only their single pursuer.
"Maybe we should hide," Brianna said. "If we're too tired to run or fight, thaf s our only option."
Tavis shook his head. "The cover's not good enough."
They were standing beside a cold bog, surrounded by swamp spruce, white birch, and tamarack. The terrain was flat and level in all directions, with nothing to offer protection except fallen tree trunks and a single boulder.
"Besides, Goboka wouldn't make so much noise unless he's already seen us," the scout added.
"Maybe it's not Goboka," suggested Brianna, staring into the forest. "If he can see us, we should see him too."
"What are you implying?" asked Basil.
Brianna licked her finger and held it in the air. "That noise is coming from downwind," she said. "Whatever's
coming, I'd say it smelled us." "A bear?" Avner asked.
Two more thumps echoed through the woods. The unseen beast snorted in alarm, then seemed to regain its footing and continue crashing through the undergrowth. Tavis could now hear its footfalls well enough to realize the creature was galloping.
"It's a horse," the scout said.
"Blizzard?" Brianna gasped.
A loud whinny rang off the trees, then the horse's white-flecked head and chest came flying into view, her hooves barely clearing the jumble of logs over which she had leaped. She caught sight of Brianna and whinnied again, galloping toward the princess as fast as she could. The mare looked as haggard and tired as the four companions. Her coat was dull and rough, so smeared with dirt and mud that it was more brown than black. Her mane and tail were tangled with burrs, and she had lost so much weight that her ribs stuck out like sticks.
Brianna stepped away from the boulder and spread her arms. Blizzard did not slow down until she was almost upon the princess, and the impact as she galloped into her mistress's arms would have sent a smaller woman tumbling into the cold bog. As it was, Brianna stumbled and nearly fell, but the near mishap did not wipe the smile from her face.
Tavis found the sight of Brianna's gleaming teeth a welcome one. It was the first time he had seen her smile in longer than he cared to remember.
The princess finally released Blizzard's neck and began to stroke the mare's nose. "It looks like you've had a rough time of it, girl," she said. "You must be as ready to go home as I am."
"Home?" Avner gasped. "Back to the castle?"
The smile vanished from Brianna's lips. "That's right." She nodded. "I must face my father."
"Are you sure that's prudent?" asked Basil. "In all like-
lihood, he'll return you to the ogres."
"Not before I tell the earls the price he paid to win his kingdom," she replied.
"What good is that?" Avner objected. "Half of them would do the same thing! They won't defy their king to protect you."
"He doesn't deserve to be their king!" Brianna snapped. "When he made his bargain with Goboka, he didn't betray me alone. He betrayed his kingdom!"
"How so?" Basil asked.
"The king has sired no other children," Brianna explained. "If the ogres take me, there's no legitimate heir to the throne. Hartsvale will fall into anarchy when my father dies."
"And that's why we must go back," Tavis said. The scout chose not to comment on the other, more ghastly possibility: that the Twilight Spirit would help some giant get a child on her—a half-breed who would, in time, become heir to Hartsvale's throne. "We must make the earls understand the king's crime."
"Not we." Brianna took Tavis's hand between hers and looked into his eyes. "You've already done more for me than I deserve."
"Brianna, that's not possible," the scoutprotested.
"It is, especially given my poor behavior," the princess insisted. "I should never have doubted you, but I swear in Hiatea's name it will never happen again. Please forgive me."
Tavis felt the heat rising to his cheeks. "My lady, I already have," he replied. "All I ask in return is that you allow me to stand with you during the trying days to come."
Brianna's eyes grew watery, and she released Tavis's hand. "I only wish I could," she said. "But Avner is right about my chances with the earls. When we reach Castle Hartwick, I want you to wait in the woods. If I fail, take the boy and go find your tribe. You're a remarkable firbolg,
and I'm sure there will be a place for you."
Tavis shook his head. "You know I can't do that," he said. "Now more than ever, you need a bodyguard—and I'm the only firbolg available for the job."
"But what of Avner?" Brianna demanded. "If we fail, it won't be safe for him in Hartsvale."
"It would be safer than sending him to live with firbolgs!" Basil protested. "The child wouldn't last two days in such a stern society."
"Besides, my place is at Tavis's side," Avner said.
"If Brianna and I fail, your place will be with Basil," the scout countered. 'You aren't going into the castle."
Avner rolled his eyes and sighed. "If that's what you want."
"This won't be like the time you let Morten walk into the ogre ambush," Tavis warned. "I mean what I say."
"So do I," Avner replied. He met the firbolg's eyes squarely. "I won't disappoint you this time."
"I know you won't" Tavis ruffled the boy's hair, then looked back to Brianna. "See? We're all set."
"Almost," the princess said. "But there's one thing you must promise me."
"As long as it's in my power," the scout replied.
"It is," Brianna said. 'You mustn't let my father return me to the ogres. Kill me first."
"I couldn't raise a hand against you!" he objected.
"What I ask is well within your power," Brianna insisted. "To deny me this promise is to break your word."
Tavis looked away, but the princess stepped around and forced him to look at her.
"I've told you what I want. Will you obey?"
A knot formed in the scout's throat, but he nodded. "My last arrow will be for you," he said. "But, if it comes to that, the first one will be for your father."
"Agreed," Brianna replied. "It will be better to end the Hartwick dynasty quickly, so that a powerful earl can
seize the throne before the others start plotting and scheming."
"I'm glad you've developed a plan for what you're going to do inside the castle, but what about getting us there?" asked Basil. "As exhausted as we are, we can't outrun Goboka."
Tavis nodded. "You're right about that," he said. "Sooner or later, we'll have to rest—or pass out from fatigue. Either way, the shaman will catch us long before we reach Hartsvale."
"Then let's meet him here." Brianna studied the bog for a moment, then said, "Here's what we'll do."
When the princess finished explaining her plan, Tavis shook his head. "It puts you in too much risk," he said. "You'll suffocate if something goes wrong."
"We all share in the risk," Brianna countered. "And if something goes wrong, I want to suffocate. I'd rather die than fall into Goboka's hands again."
Basil passed his hand axe to the princess. "In that case, the hunted shall become the hunter."
? * * * *
From his hiding place in a log tangle, Tavis watched Goboka's bulky figure approach. The shaman could not have had much rest in past two days, but he showed little sign of fatigue. His strides were long and steady, his eyes alert, and his jaw set with determination. Even his wound seemed to be healing. From the stump of his severed arm dangled the beginnings of a new limb, complete with a tiny elbow, wrist, and hand.
Goboka stopped twenty paces from the bog. His purple eyes narrowed and glared over the gray mud at the weary Brianna, who sat in the center of the quagmire on a hastily constructed raft of three logs. The ogre's gaze flickered to the opposite bank, where Blizzard stood nickering and scraping at the shore with her hooves,
then his nostrils flared. He scowled and dropped to his knees, sniffing at the ground as a wolf might.
Cursing under his breath, Tavis nocked an arrow. Goboka had stopped a good dozen steps short of the cross fire he and Basil had set up, but the scout knew their target would come no closer. Ogres normally did not have an acute sense of smell, so it seemed apparent the shaman had used magic to enhance his—and if his spell was half as powerful as a wolf's nose, it would riot take him long to find his ambushers.
Tavis rose and fired. At the sound of Bear Driller's bowstring, the shaman sprang to his feet. As fast as he moved, his reflexes were not quick enough to spare him entirely. The shaft took him in the shoulder above the severed arm. Tavis was still using ogre arrows, so the impact did not even knock Goboka down, but when the ogre saw the arrow's black fletching, his eyes widened in alarm. Cursing in the guttural language of his people, he ripped the shaft from his wound and flung it away.
"Now, Basil!" Tavis yelled. The scout was already nocking another arrow.
Goboka's eyelids began to droop and he sank to his haunches, but he managed to pull a clay vial from his satchel. Without even opening it, he stuck the small bottle into his mouth and bit down. Runnels of bright blue fluid spilled from the corners of his mouth and dribbled down his chin, bubbling and hissing, sending wisps of blood-colored vapor up past his nose.
The scout released his bowstring, aiming for one of the shaman's sleepy eyes. The ogre's lethargic gaze was fixed on his attacker, seemingly oblivious to the streaking shaft. Tavis's hand dropped reflexively toward his quiver, but he found himself thinking he might not need another arrow—until, almost casually, Goboka tipped his head aside and allowed the shaft to hiss past.
Basil rose from his hiding place, also in a log tangle, and flung a flat runestone toward the ogre. With smoke
and flame spewing from its edges, the rock sailed straight for Goboka. The shaman looked toward the sizzling rock, then raised the stump of his arm into the air and, with the tiny hand growing at its end, tapped the disc ever so slightly. The missile changed directions and came shooting straight for Tavis.
The scout hurled himself from the log tangle and rolled, trying to put as much distance between himself and the runestone as possible. A loud thump echoed through the forest as the disc buried itself in a log. The sizzle deepened to a rumble, became a roaring crescendo, and finally exploded with a deafening clap.
An eerie tranquility settled over the wood. The silence lasted only an instant before it was shattered by the sputter of a hundred flaming wood shards returning to earth. Tavis curled into a tight ball, listening to the lumber crashing through the tree limbs. The acrid smell of smoke filled the air as huge staves thudded into the ground all around, then he heard a branch snap above his head. The scout looked up to see the sharp end of a flaming stick dropping toward his face. He twisted away, barely keeping the fiery stake from piercing his skull.
Tavis jumped up, nocking another arrow. When he turned to aim, Goboka had vanished.
"Where is he?"
Basil slowly spun around, craning his neck in all directions. "He's disappeared, Tavis." The verbeeg's voice cracked as he registered the complaint. "I can't see him!"
"It's all right. Don't panic," the scout said.
Tavis moved cautiously forward, his eyes searching for fluttering branches or some other sign that might betray an invisible foe. Goboka's voice echoed through the trees behind Basil, chanting the mystic syllables of an incantation. Tavis turned toward the sound and found his arrow pointing at the verbeeg's chest.
"Duck!" the scout yelled.
By the time Basil could obey, Goboka had ended his incantation. The scout released his arrow and heard the shaman leaping for cover. The shaft hissed into the forest without hitting anything, but at least it would make their invisible foe think twice before he uttered another spell.
Basil's log pile shifted. The runecaster cried out in alarm and tried to scramble away, but something caught his feet and pulled him back. One of the logs began to writhe, its gray bark changing to scales before Tavis's eyes. The bole slithered around the verbeeg's waist and began twining him in its mighty coils.
The scout resisted the urge to sprint to Basil's aid, realizing Goboka was probably using the runecaster as bait. Instead, Tavis stopped well out of the snake's reach and fired his arrow. The shaft bounced harmlessly off the beast's thick scales. He tried again, this time drawing his string back until the tip barely touched the bow. Again, the shot did not penetrate.
"Where boy?" demanded Goboka's voice.
Tavis nocked an arrow and turned toward the sound, but remembered how the shaman had thrown his voice in the fault cave and did not fire. Taking care to conceal the maneuver with his fingers, the firbolg slipped the notch of the ogre shaft off Bear Killer's string, but drew the bow as if he were going to fire.
"Leave Avner out of this," Tavis said, relieved to hear the shaman trying such a trick. If it had been possible for the ogre to throw his voice while uttering a spell incantation, Goboka would not have bothered trying to make conversation.
"Let all you go," Goboka said. To give the impression that he was moving about, he had shifted the location of his words. "Give me princess."
Tavis turned his bow toward the voice and released the cord beneath his fingers. The sonorous strum of Bear Killer's snapping bowstring echoed off the trees,
but the firbolg's arrow remained between his fingers.
As the scout expected, Goboka's heavy footsteps came rushing at him from behind. Tavis tightened his grip on the arrow and spun, thrusting the shaft out in front of him. He heard an astonished groan and felt the iron tip sink into something pulpy, then the shaman's huge bulk smashed into him, breaking the arrow and knocking the firbolg off his feet.
Tavis crashed to the ground beneath his attacker. The air rushed from his lungs in a single excruciating gasp, then a pair of huge hands closed around his throat. He felt hot ogre blood spilling onto his skin, then Goboka's loathsome face appeared before his eyes, the illusion of invisibility shattered once the shaman revealed his location by attacking. The brute's yellow tusks were gnashing in fury, with blue poison antidote still frothing at the corners of his mouth.
Tavis slammed his palms into the ogre's elbows, trying to break his attacker's arms and free himself of the hands that had squeezed shut the veins in his neck. The shaman roared in anger, but his sturdy limbs did not budge, and he brought his heavy brow down to smash his captive's face. The scout turned his head, keeping his nose from being shattered, but Goboka's forehead still caught him in the cheek. An agonizing crackle resonated through the firbolg's head, and his entire face erupted in pain.
Tavis's sight began to grow murky and black, as though he were climbing into a cave for a deep winter sleep. The scout fought to stay alert, turning all his thoughts toward the dwindling light at the lair's distant mouth, but the gloom continued to close in, until he could see nothing but Goboka's hideous face leering at him from the other end of a narrow, dark tunnel.
Tavis reached up and pressed his thumbs to Goboka's eyes, trying to gouge the purple orbs from their sockets before the warrens of his mind grew completely dark.
The shaman threw his head back, pulling his eyes safely out of reach—then Avner's small frame appeared in the gloomy shadows at the edge of Tavis's vision. The youth's hand was arcing through the air, driving the gleaming blade of a steel dagger down past Goboka's face. The knife struck with a deep thud. A spray of blood shot up past the shaman's cheek, and the ogre finally pulled his hands from Tavis's throat.
As the blood rushed back into Tavis's head, the murk began to lighten. The scout glimpsed Goboka's clublike arm swinging toward Avner's small form. The blow landed with a terrible crack and sent the youth sailing through the air. The boy yelled once, then fell quiet
The shaman stood and turned to follow. As soon as the tremendous weight disappeared from Tavis's chest, the scout pushed himself up and reached out to clutch Goboka's ankle. The ogre did not even spin around. He simply swung the heel of his huge foot and caught Tavis beneath the chin. The scout went reeling down into the dreamless mists where bears sleep.
Brianna snatched up the small wooden javelin Basil had prepared for her and stood, more than a little frightened by what she saw on shore. The shaman's kick had left Tavis lying motionless, either unconscious or dead, while the ogre's snake had just captured Basil's second arm in its coils. Goboka himself was striding toward Avner's groaning form, apparently determined to make certain the youth did not survive to attack him again. Despite the steel dagger and two arrows that had been lodged in his bloody torso, the shaman showed no signs of discomfort—much less of debilitating injury—as he moved to finish the boy.
"Hiatea, give me your blessing," Brianna whispered. "The battle has fallen upon my shoulders now."
The princess spoke the command word Basil had taught her, then hurled the javelin in her hand at Goboka's back. With a great whoosh, the spear burst into flame and streaked away, long tongues of yellow fire trailing after it. The shaman cocked an ear toward the hissing shaft, then, without even glancing toward the sound, hurled himself to the ground.
The maneuver did not spare him. The shaft curved down and planted itself between his shoulder blades. Goboka's scream echoed through the woods. The javelin burst apart, leaving a geyser of flame to shoot from the hole in the ogre's back.
At last, something had injured the shaman. For several moments, he lay on the ground with a pillar of greasy black smoke rising from his wound, growling with pain and digging his long talons into the dirt. Brianna thought he might be dying, but that hope vanished when he raised his head and looked back toward her. His purple eyes had gone black with rage, while his lips were covered with gashes from his own gnashing tusks.
Goboka pushed himself to his feet. After glancing around to make certain his other foes would not be attacking again, he fixed his eyes on Brianna and staggered toward her.
"Princess like hurt? Goboka too. Got plenty." The ogre stopped at the edge of the bog and scowled at the syrupy mud. "Hurt you good before we go."
Brianna stared across the bog, not trying to hide her fear. "You're not going to hurt me," she said. "I won't allow it."
The princess turned and took quick steps, then leaped away from the edge of the raft. She splashed, with a syrupy gurgle, into the mud and plunged in as far as her chest, then began to sink more slowly.
Goboka's angry eyes paled to lavender, and his heavy jaw fell open. "Stop!" he ordered. "What you do?"
T swore I'd die before I let you take me again," Brianna said. Her feet touched the boulder she and her companions had placed on the bottom when they moved the raft into position, and she slowly bent her knees so that it would appear she was continuing to sink. "And I meant it."
The princess held her chin above the mire long enough to see the shaman grab a log and come splashing toward her, then she closed her eyes and let her head sink into cold mud. Pinching her nostrils shut with one hand, Brianna kneeled down and ran her hand over the boulder until she found the line they had tied to it, then she followed the rope until she came to the hand axe.
The princess pulled the weapon loose. Her heart began to pound, rebelling against any plan that required her to stop breathing, and within thirty alarmed beats the rest of her body joined the panic. Soon, it seemed to Brianna that she had been submerged forever, though a small corner of her mind knew that no more than a minute had passed. Her lungs began to ache for air, and her mouth longed to open wide. It required a conscious act of will to keep her legs folded beneath her, for every instinct screamed at her to straighten them out and thrust her head up into the cool, crisp air just two feet above. But the princess knew what would happen if she did: Goboka would realize he had been tricked. He would react instantly, dodging or blocking her axe strike, and her chance would be gone.
The princess could not understand what was taking Goboka so long. He was obviously intelligent, at least for an ogre, and this was a simple enough thing to do. Push his log out to her raft and plunge his hand into the mud, then grasp her hair—or whatever he could find—and pull her up.
Perhaps he was casting a spell. They had talked about that possibility, but Basil had convinced them that once Brianna was submerged, the ogre would not have time
to prepare a spell capable of saving her. Unfortunately, Goboka had surprised them too many times for the princess to place much faith in the runecaster's reassurances. That she was now crouching in the bog was proof enough of the shaman's prowess, for this was the last hope of victory. All of their other plans and assaults had failed to stop him.
There was nothing for Brianna to do but wait, fighting against her own instincts while her body slowly burned her last whiffs of air. Her temples began to throb, and her chest was about to burst with the urge to expel the stale breath in her lungs. In the back of her mind, a fiendish voice kept saying she would feel better if she exhaled. The princess did not listen. She knew her desperate lungs would try to refill themselves the instant she emptied them, and she still had enough control over her mind to know humans could not breathe mud.
At last, Brianna felt the mire swirling near her face. She pushed her head toward the activity and felt her brow brush a pair of talons. They twitched away, and she lost contact. The princess almost screamed, then felt the coarse pads of five ogre fingers slipping over the crown of her head. They squeezed down, the claws digging into her scalp so deep she feared they would puncture her skull.
Brianna took her fingers away from her nostrils and reached up to claw at the hand, trying to pull Goboka into the mud on top of her. She did not want to succeed, but if she allowed the shaman to pull her from the bog without a struggle, he might sense a trap.
Goboka's talons dug deeper, and he pulled. Brianna was surprised by the force the bog exerted to keep her down. The suction was more powerful than the princess had imagined possible, and she found herself worrying the ogre would not be strong enough to pull her free. She had heard many stories of moose, bears, and even dragons that had become so caught in quag-
mires that they starved to death within plain sight of solid ground. If such powerful beasts could not free themselves, it seemed unreasonable to think an ogre could pull her out.
Fortunately, Brianna did not have to rely on her foe. Ever so slightly, she began to straighten her legs and push against the solid surface of the boulder. She felt herself slipping slowly upward, until, with a loud whooshing sound, the suction broke and her head came shooting out of the mud.
Brianna found herself looking at the side of Goboka's log, with what appeared to be a bleeding mass of mud piled on top. At first, the princess did not know what to make of the sight, then she understood exactly what she was seeing and braced her feet solidly on the boulder. She pushed herself to her full height, so that she was standing only chest-deep in the mire, and brought the hand axe up from beneath the muck.
Goboka tried to slide off the other side of the log, but Brianna was already swinging the weapon at his throat. The blade came down with a damp, distinct thump, then she felt the satisfying crackle of a skull popping free of its neck.
The head splashed into the bog, but the rest of the shaman's bulky corpse remained on the log. Brianna shoved the loathsome body out of sight and pulled herself from the bog, already turning toward the shore where her friends lay in desperate need of healing magic.
It did not occur to the princess to give a victory cry, not until she reached the shore of the bog and saw Tavis lift his battered head.
*18*
Audience vo\th the King
As the flabbergasted doormen performed the ceremonial presentation of their poleaxes, Brianna pulled Basil's runestone from beneath her grimy bearskin cape and turned its glowing symbol toward them. The eyelids of both men drooped shut, the tension drained from their bodies, and their weapons slipped from their hands. They fell to floor, landing atop each other in a crumpled heap.
The princess spun around, presenting the runestone to the six astonished sentries flanking Tavis. These guards also sank into slumber, collapsing to the floor amidst a clamor of weapons and armor.
"Can I look yet?" Tavis was holding his hands to his eyes. Avner and Basil were waiting, at Brianna's order, in the woods outside Castle Hartwick.
"Yes." Brianna turned the runestone toward the floor, then waited for the scout to uncover his eyes and handed it to him. "You keep this, in case any more of Father's guards show up."
Tavis slipped the runestone beneath his cloak, then retrieved Bear Driller from the guard who had been holding it. "I'll slip inside once you've drawn their attention away from the door," he said. "Don't worry if you don't notice. I'll be there when you need me."
Brianna smiled and touched his cheek, which was still badly swollen in spite of all the healing spells she had cast on it. 'You always have," she said. "Wish me luck."
The princess turned and kicked the door, thrusting her heel into the bas-relief face of a leering satyr. The portal swung open with a resounding boom, then
Brianna stepped through a looming arch into Castle Hartwick's banquet room.
The cavernous chamber was every bit as gloomy as the interior of the Fir Palace, for the wall sconces had all been hung with red mourning curtains that turned the flickering torchlight to the color of blood. A long feasting table ran down the center of the room. Standing along its sides, staring in her direction with their swords drawn and mead dripping from their beards, were the surviving earls of Hartsvale. Most had white bandages covering the wounds they had suffered during the ogre ambush, and a few still seemed to have trouble standing.
"Put your weapons away and sit down, gentlemen," Brianna commanded. "I intend you no harm."
The princess looked toward the far end of the table where the king, his eyes bleary and his beard slick with the grease of roast fowl, sat. In the first chair on the right sat his young queen, Celia of Dunsany, barely older than Brianna, while High Priest Simon sat in the first chair on the left. Two members of the Giant Guard, the stone giant Gavorial and the frost giant Hrodmar, stood in the shadows behind him, hardly distinguishable from the great pillars supporting the ceiling.
As Brianna swept into the room, the king squinted at her as if he did not know who she could possibly be. The earls remained frozen in silence, too shocked even to whisper to each other. Only the giants seemed to accept that the princess had returned, with Hrodmar glancing nervously at Gavorial for guidance. The stone giant, patient and stolid as ever, raised a single long finger to instruct his companion to remain motionless.
Finally, Camden demanded, 'Who dares burst into my hall?"
"Brianna of Hartwick, of course," the princess replied.
Brianna stepped over to the banquet table, where she would be illuminated by the candles, and paused. After her long ordeal in the mountains, she had a haggard,
wind-chapped face and snarled, stringy hair, but the princess had not changed so much that even her drunken father could fail to recognize her.
"What apparition are you?" demanded the king. "My daughter was abducted by ogres!"
'Then what are you doing here?" demanded Brianna. Though she had just entered the room, she could see that strong drink had reduced the king to a pitiful, confused shadow of the father she remembered. "Why are you feasting in your hall when you should be in the mountains, tracking ogres and fighting to save me?"
This was too much for the stuporous king. "She's a ghost!" he blurted. "Away with her!"
Hrodmar started to step around the table, but Gavorial raised his hand and gently held the frost giant back. Brianna found the favor puzzling, for the Giant Guard prided itself on obedience to the king's every word. But then, it had always seemed to her that the stone giant was constantly and silently measuring the actions of those around him. Perhaps Gavorial had ignored the command because he already knew what the princess hoped to prove to the earls: that her father was no longer worthy of obedience.
When no one moved to obey, the king leaped out of his chair. "She's a ghoul, I tell you!" he yelled. "Don't let her near!"
"I'm no fiend," Brianna replied. She touched her fingers to the cheek of a nearby earl, one of the few whom she knew to be an honest and trustworthy man. "I'm quite alive, as I'm certain Earl Wendel will tell you."
The earl nodded. "Her flesh is as soft and warm as that of my own wife."
"What are you saying?" the king demanded. "Whose side are you on?"
"My king's, of course," the earl replied. He met the king's glare evenly. "I'll claim that Brianna's a fiend, if you desire—but I don't know why you'd want that. If she
were my daughter, I'd be overjoyed to see her return safely."
For a moment, Camden stared at Earl Wendel as though he didn't comprehend what the man had said. Then the king seemed to realize he was making a fool of himself and sank back into his chair. He pulled off his golden crown and placed it next to his mug, then ran his hands through his tangled hair.
"Yes, forgive me. It's just that I'm ... I've been so distraught." The king raised his gaze to Brianna, and she saw that there were tears welling in his eyes. "I am happy to see you alive. It's just that... I'm so sorry... but I didn't expect I ever would."
"I imagine you didn't," Brianna replied, sickened by the pathetic figure at the head of the table. "Considering your bargain with Goboka, I'm quite sure you counted me lost forever."
The king's lips began to tremble. His eyes darted around the banquet table, studying the mood of his earls. When he saw nothing but blank faces, he motioned Brianna forward.
"You must be hungry, my dear." Camden cast a meaningful glance toward High Priest Simon. As the cleric rose to offer his chair, the king continued, "Come and sit beside your father. Eat and drink."
The king had not lost his capacities entirely, Brianna realized. He was attempting to retain control of the situation by changing the subject, and by subtly exerting his authority over her. Also, closing the distance between them would transform the discussion from a public matter to a private one. The princess knew her cause would be lost if she allowed him to accomplish either goal.
"Sit down, Simon." As she gave the command, Brianna glared into her father's eyes, making clear that she was challenging his authority. "I have no intention of accepting hospitality from a man who would trade his daughter—his only heir—for a kingdom."
Camden's eyes flashed with anger. He pushed his chair back and drew himself to his full height, slamming his fist onto the tabletop. Earthenware mugs and platters bounced so high into the air that they shattered when they came down, spilling mead and greasy meat.
"I did not trade you for my throne!" he thundered.
Celia's face went as pale as bone, but the young queen seemed afraid to rise without permission. Brianna wondered if the king had become that much of a tyrant. By the deathly silence in the room, she suspected he had. Even the earls sat petrified in their chairs, their eyes fixed on Camden's shuddering figure as though he were about to explode.
"You dare deny it?" Brianna inquired. Despite her growing anger, she deliberately kept her voice as calm as possible. The contrast between her composure and the king's demented fury would only serve to convince the earls she was telling the truth. "Then why were the horses of all your companies still in their stables? What forces have you sent to rescue me from the ogres?"
This drew a quiet drone of whispering from the earls, and Brianna knew they had probably been wondering the same thing.
"I don't deny that I have made great personal sacrifices for the benefit of Hartsvale." The king's voice was suddenly as calm as Brianna's, his face so serene and collected that it was difficult to believe he had been a blustering drunkard only a moment before. He braced himself on the table and leaned forward, speaking to his earls now instead of Brianna. "Goboka has been a good friend. Not only did he help us resolve our difficulties during the War of Harts, he has kept ogres from marauding in our valley for these nineteen years."
"And the price for his help was your daughter?" asked Earl Wendel, incredulous.
The king narrowed his eyes at the earl and gave him a menacing glare. Then he answered, 'Yes."
The king's mouth hung open for a moment, as though he intended to add more to his explanation, then he shifted his gaze to Brianna's face. The tears that had welled in his eyes earlier began to spill down his cheeks openly, and he made no attempt to conceal them.
"Please understand, Brianna," he begged. "I acted for the good of Hartsvale."
The princess studied the king without responding. Although his tears appeared genuine enough, the eyes from which they came were cold and hard and, most surprisingly, angry. If not for the ire in her father's eyes, Brianna might have believed that he had acted only out of a stolid sense of duty. But the king's anger bespoke something far more sinister: a spiritual barrenness that would always prevent him from ruling with the true welfare of his subjects at heart.
"You're lying, and the sad thing is that you're the only one who doesn't know it," she said. "You don't have any idea what it means to act for the good of the kingdom. You can think only of what makes your throne more secure—and the reason you're angry with me now is that my return threatens your power."
Camden's tears suddenly dried up. "I'm still your king."
"And that's all that matters to you," Brianna retorted. "That's why you promised your unborn daughter to Goboka—not to end the war, but to protect your crown from Dunstan."
'You mustn't say such things." Camden's voice was as cool as ice, and as threatening as an avalanche. "Your mother did, and look what..."
The king let the sentence trail off, his eyes racing over the faces of those nearest him.
"Look what happened to her?" Brianna demanded. She was beginning to understand that the man in front of her had never truly been the father she loved, or the king she had admired. He was an imposter, a thief who
had stolen his throne, and perhaps a ruthless murderer who had killed to defend it. "Did you throw her into the Clearwhirl? Is that what you'll do with me?"
By the crimson color of the king's face and the throbbing veins in his temples, Brianna knew she had guessed correctly. "You killed her!"
"She was weak!" Camden retorted. "She wouldn't make the sacrifices demanded of a queen!"
"A queen is not required to give her child to ogres," Brianna countered. "Not unless she has a monster for a husband."
Though the massive banquet table weighed as much as one of Castle Hartwick's gates, Camden grabbed it and heaved it aside. Regardless of what manner of king he had become, he remained a Hartwick and was blessed with the giantlike strength of their line. The table flipped on its side, knocking several earls and Celia of Dunsany to the floor. The queen cried out in pain, but the king appeared not to notice and started across the room.
A general clamor filled the chamber as the earls leaped to their feet. They seemed entirely unsure as to what they should do, but were apparently convinced that some action would be required. A few moved forward to grab the king, others rushed to lift the table off Celia, and the remainder simply reached for their belt weapons.
"Stand your ground!" warned Gavorial.
"I'll mash any man who harms the king!" added Hrodmar. The frost giant's voice shook the entire room.
The warnings were enough to freeze the earls in their places. The king threw a chair aside, then, as High Priest Simon kneeled over Celia at the other end of the room, Camden stopped in front of Brianna.
"Apologize!"
"No."
Camden raised his hand. Brianna lifted her chin and
glared into her father's eyes, hoping Tavis would be wise enough not to make his presence known at this moment.
"Beat your daughter if you must," the princess said. "I'm sure it will be a good lesson for the earls."
The king checked his hand in midswing, then slowly looked around the room at his earls. They were all watching with uneasy expressions, as though considering what the king might do to them if he was willing to beat a princess in public. Camden slowly lowered his hand, then backed away from his daughter.
"You're right. It was a tragic mistake to ask Goboka's help," the king admitted. He was staring at the floor with the vacant gaze of a lost man. "Your mother was the lucky one. She didn't have to watch you grow up, knowing that she would have to give you up when you reached the bloom of womanhood."
The king raised his eyes to Brianna's face, and this time there was no anger in his gaze, only bitterness and self-pity. "Do you know what that was like, Brianna? To watch your child mature, knowing for nineteen years that you would betray her?"
"I can only imagine," Brianna replied coldly. "It must have been like growing up without your mother, believing she had chosen to die rather than raise you."
"But she did choose to die!" the king insisted. "When she refused to understand that I couldn't undo my mistake, I had no choice but to kill her. I had to protect the kingdom."
"You had to protect the king," Brianna corrected.
"They're the same. You'd understand that if you were in my position," Camden said. Then, as if Brianna had agreed with him, he continued, "You don't know what I've endured all these years. The agony has been eating me from the inside out."
"I'm sure."
The king stepped over to Brianna and took her hand. A cold sweat had slickened his palms. "I'm glad you
know the truth at last," he said. "It will make it easier to understand why I must send you back."
Brianna looked around the chamber. Gavorial and Hrodmar had slipped forward to be near the king, and were thus blocking her view of Celia and the earls attending her at the head of the table. But the men she could see were staring at her father with slack-jawed expressions of disbelief. Already, she guessed that half of them believed him an unfit king. The time had come to take the offensive and convince the other half.
Without removing her hand from her father's grasp, the princess asked, "Are you worried that there will be a war with Goboka and his ogres if I don't return to them?"
The king smiled. "I knew you'd understand," he said. "For the good of the kingdom, we must both live with my tragic mistake."
Brianna smiled back. "That won't be necessary," she said. "Goboka is dead."
"What?" Hrodmar boomed.
"The shaman poses no danger to me or Hartsvale," Brianna repeated. 'Tavis Burdun and I killed him."
Many of the earls voiced their congratulations, while others sighed in relief, and the rest began to murmur among themselves about what Brianna's return meant to the kingdom's future.
Gavorial's voice knelled out above the din, bringing the babble to a sudden silence. "Perhaps you killed Goboka, but what of his horde?" the stone giant asked. "Surely, the two of you couldn't have slain so many hundreds of ogres?"
"Not by ourselves," Brianna replied.
The princess glanced around the shadowy room, hoping that Tavis had slipped into position by now. Her demented father no longer posed the greatest danger, for if Gavorial and Hrodmar knew of the Twilight Spirit's involvement in her abduction, there was no telling how
the pair would react to what she was reporting. Fortunately, she and the scout had discussed this uncertainty beforehand, and Tavis knew what to do.
When Brianna offered no further information about the horde's fate, it was Hrodmar who demanded, "What do you mean? Are those ogres dead or not?"
Brianna regarded the frost giant with an expression of disdain. "I'm hardly accustomed to being interrogated by my father's guards," she replied. "But if you must know, Noote's hill giants killed most of them—though we certainly slayed our share as well."
"The hill giants!"
Hrodmar looked to Gavorial for guidance, but the stone giant had none to offer. He merely regarded Brianna with his gray eyes, a thumb and single long finger rubbing his chin.
Brianna turned back to her father, determined to have the earls solidly on her side before any trouble with the giants began. "Without Goboka and his horde to concern you, the time has come for you to make amends for your tragic mistake, Father."
A suspicious light flashed in the king's eyes. "What are you talking about amends?"
Raising her voice so she could be heard throughout the chamber, the princess replied, "As your daughter and the princess of Hartsvale, I demand your abdication."
"Don't mock me, foolish girl!" her father yelled. His eyes were gleaming with a mad purple light. "In spite of my mistakes, I've been a good king!"
"Really?" Brianna scoffed. 'Would that be because you murder your queens, or because you were about to deliver Hartsvale into the hands of the ogres?"
"Enough!"
The king lashed out, striking her with the back of his hand. He hit her harder than Goboka had on Coggin's Rise and sent her tumbling over the banquet table into
the empty seats beyond. The chairs toppled over, spilling her to the floor, and all she could do was lie on the cold stone with the blow still ringing in her ears.
Brianna heard the table being dragged aside and knew her father was coming. She shook her head clear, then grabbed a chair back and pulled herself to her feet. The princess found Wendel and three earls standing between her and her father.
Wendel gave her a clean cloth. "Perhaps you'd like to wipe your face," he suggested. "Then I think the earls would like to hear what you have to say."
"Thank you." As Brianna stanched her bleeding nose, she discreetly searched the shadows on the other side of the room. The princess found Tavis peeking out from behind a pillar, Bear Driller in his hand.
'Traitors!" Camden yelled, glaring at the earls. Despite his accusation, the king did not call on his giants for support. Instead, he returned his gaze to the princess. In a sly voice, he said, "I see your game now. You're jealous of Celia."
Brianna did not understand her father's purpose. By now, he should have been threatening the earls, not making flimsy accusations against her. "Why would I be jealous of Celia?"
"Because you want to be queen."
"I would have been content to wait—had you allowed me that choice," Brianna replied. She turned to address the earls. "But what I would not do is bear an ogre's child, especially not when that child could one day became the king of Hartsvale."
The princess did not need to spell matters out for the earls. Since she was the single heir to Hartsvale's throne, one day her offspring would have the only legitimate claim to the throne. If that child was half-ogre, the earls would be left with a very unpleasant choice: pledge their fealty to a brutal savage, or wage a war of rebellion against the rightful heir of a thousand-year dynasty.
Brianna allowed the earls a moment to ponder what she had implied, then finished, "I'd rather die before I did that to Hartsvale."
The king applauded, cutting short any reaction from the earls. "Your dedication to Hartsvale is most appreciated—but hardly necessary." He smirked at Brianna, then said, "Happily, soon you will no longer be my only child."
"What?" Brianna gasped.
"Celia is with child," the king replied. He turned toward the far end of the room, where chairs and crockery still lay strewn over the floor after his fit of temper. "Ask her, if you like."
High Priest Simon rose from behind the toppled table, his hands dripping with blood. "The queen is in no condition to answer questions, Your Majesty." He glared across the room at Camden, then added, "And if she survives, I doubt she will be bearing you any children."
Camden's face went pale, and he whirled on Brianna. "This is your fault!" he screamed. "See what your treachery has done?"
"The princess has done nothing," said Earl Wendel. "But you—you have abdicated your crown."
"Hear! Hear!" shouted an earl. He repeated the cry, and this time many more voices joined in. "Hear! Hear!"
Camden turned to his giants. "Stomp them!" he ordered. "Smash them all!"
Hrodmar raised a foot to obey, but Gavorial grasped the frost giant's arm. "It is our duty to protect the king's life, not perform his murders," said the stone giant. He knelt at Camden's side and held out a chair-sized palm. "Come along gently, my king. There is no longer anything here for you."
The wild-eyed king looked slowly around the room, searching for a friendly face. As he looked into each set of eyes, they turned as hard and cold as his had been the last few days. When he found no warmth even in the
countenance of his most trusted advisor and friend, High Priest Simon, Camden slumped into the stone giant's open palm. He pointed to a golden circlet lying on the floor near Celia, amidst the bones of greasy fowl and pools of spilled mead. "My crown," he said. "I want my crown."
From among the banquet chamber's shadowy pillars, Tavis Burdun watched as Earl Wendel picked up the grease-stained crown. He did not give it to Camden, but turned instead and passed it to Brianna. "This no longer belongs to your father," he said. "Now it is yours. May you wear it in health."
"Hear! Hear!" chorused the earls.
As far as the scout could tell, none of the earls realized that he was in the room, and Princess Brianna, now Queen Brianna, was too busy accepting her subjects' congratulations to concern herself with him.
It was just as well. Crowds, even those as small as the gathering around Brianna, made firbolgs uncomfortable. Besides, as soon as the giants left, it would be time for Tavis to return to the Weary Giant. He could already imagine the mess the place had become under Livia's neglectful eye—if she and the other children had not burned the place to the ground!
Gavorial closed his hand around Camden's forlorn figure, then rose to his full height, standing so tall that his head vanished into the cavernous darkness of the chamber's ceiling. But instead of turning to leave, the stone giant faced Hrodmar and motioned toward Brianna.
"If you will bring the queen, it's time we left this place," he said. Although the stone giant was speaking to Hrodmar, his voice filled the chamber like a knelling bell.
Tavis uttered a silent curse. When Gavorial had
convinced Camden to abdicate peacefully, the firbolg had hoped the giants would cause no trouble. Now, the scout was glad he had elected to stay hidden until the pair were safely gone. His arrow already nocked, Tavis drew his bowstring back, but did not fire.
In the center of the chamber, Earl Wendel was the first to recover from the shock. He took a hand axe from his belt and stepped in front of Brianna, glaring up into the darkness that hid Gavorial's head.
"What do you mean by this treachery?" As the earl spoke, he motioned for his fellows to gather around. "We won't let you take our queen without a fight!"
"Then youll die!" chortled Hrodmar.
The frost giant raised his foot to begin kicking earls aside, but Gavorial held out a restraining hand.
"There's no need for violence," the stone giant said. Then, addressing Wendel, he said, "But you and the other earls must understand: a promise was made, and it will be kept."
Wendel scowled up into the darkness. "Why?" he demanded. "Goboka's dead!"
"But the Twilight Spirit is not," Brianna added.
"Quiet!" Hrodmar boomed. The frost giant kneeled down.
Tavis braced himself, waiting for Hrodmar to lower his head just a little bit more.
Hrodmar stretched a hand over the earls, reaching for the queen. "Don't talk about the spirit!" he ordered. "That name is not for humans to hear!"
"Why not?" Brianna asked. "What is there to hide in the Twilight Vale?"
"Quiet!"
To emphasize the consequences of ignoring his demand, Hrodmar slapped his hand down on an earl's head. The man did not even cry out, but simply collapsed to the ground in a jumbled mass of bones and flesh.
Tavis clenched his teeth, reminding himself that even if he had loosed his arrow, it would not have saved the man—or Brianna. To do that, he had to kill the frost giant, and to kill the frost giant, he had to wait for the proper shot. Somehow, that knowledge did not make it any easier to keep his fingers on the bowstring.
Gavorial stooped over and regarded the frost giant with an air of impatience. "Was that truly necessary?" The stone giant looked to Brianna, then said, "If you know of the Twilight Spirit, then you must also know that none of us have any choice except to obey him. Now, will you come along quietly—or must Hrodmar kill more of your earls?"
Hrodmar leaned forward to stretch his hand over Wendel's head, giving Tavis a clear view of a cavelike ear canal. The scout loosed his arrow. The shaft hissed through the air, then disappeared into its target.
Hrodmar roared in pain and cupped a hand over his ear, almost crushing several earls as he crashed to his side. He thrashed madly about for a moment, banging his head against the floor. Several pieces of stone facade crashed off the walls, then the giant finally fell silent and died.
Tavis stepped from the shadows with his second arrow nocked and drawn. He did not fire, for Brianna had instructed him to leave one giant alive. "Gavorial, I suggest you take the king and leave."
The stone giant glared at Tavis thoughtfully, showing no surprise or shock at the firbolg's sudden appearance. "Even you cannot make such a shot twice in a row, Tavis Burdun."
Despite his words, Gavorial drew himself up to his full height, so that his head would be concealed in the shadows above.
"That first arrow was just to let you know we're not making idle threats," Tavis said. He trained his second arrow on Brianna's chest. "This one is for Brianna."
"I see," came the stone giant's voice.
Brianna looked up into the shadows. "Do you?" she asked. "I have no idea why your spirit wants me, and I really don't care. What's important is that he understands this: Tavis Burdun hits what he aims at—and if the Twilight Spirit sends anyone else to abduct me, it will be the Queen of Hartwick that Tavis targets."
"A profound strategy," Gavorial said, genuine admiration in his voice. "The spirit has no use for a dead queen."
The stone giant slowly backed to the exit, then paused beneath the looming arch and bowed to Brianna. "I leave you in peace," he said. "And let this warning be my parting gift: Constantly be on guard, for there are many giants, and sooner or later they must all answer to the Twilight Spirit."
With that, Gavorial pushed through the huge doors and disappeared from sight. Tavis breathed a long sigh of relief and lowered Bear Driller. He fired the arrow into the floor, and it shattered into a hundred pieces.
"Long live the queen!" the scout yelled.
He repeated the words, and when the earls joined in, the cheer was as thunderous as the voice of any giant.
Epilogue
"So now what?" asked Avner. The youth stood on the ramparts of Castle Hartwick, looking across the Clear-whirl's eastern channel. In the distance, the stone giant Gavorial was disappearing into the dusk, the former king of Hartsvale gripped securely in his hand. "Now that you're the queen, what's going to happen to us?"
Brianna laid a warm hand on the youth's shoulder. "I don't know," she said. "What do you suppose should happen to you?"
The boy cast an apprehensive glance over at Basil. "What do you think?" he asked. "We did steal those books, you know."
The verbeeg scowled. "Stealing implies personal ownership, which, as you know, is a rather archaic concept—especially among my people," he said. "Besides, books are no good unless someone's using them. They shouldn't sit endlessly on some shelf."
"That's not a very good answer," Tavis said.
Basil scowled. "Very well, then," he said. "I suppose we shall have to return them to Earl Dobbin's family."
Avner looked up at the scout. "Is that okay with you?"
Tavis shook his head sternly. "Hardly," he said. "Returning what you have stolen is a good start, but I don't see how that alone will discourage you from trying it again."
Avner scowled. After all he had gone through, it hardly seemed fair to punish him for something he had done in what felt like the ancient past—but he resisted the urge to say so. He knew Tavis well enough to realize that complaining would only make matters worse.
"I've thought of just punishments," Brianna said. "Basil, the royal libraries are a mess. Your sentence shall be to clean and organize them."
The verbeeg's eyes lit up. "With pleasure!" he said. "How many volumes do you have—approximately?"
"We have exactly two thousand three hundred and twelve," Brianna replied. "And I should warn you that the one thing we do possess is a complete list. If even one comes up missing—"
"They won't," the verbeeg promised. "Who needs to steal when he can borrow?"
"What about me?" Avner asked, hoping his punishment would be something just as fitting.
Brianna smiled. "Once your arm is better, I think you should stay here to clean out Blizzard's stall—for a year."
"A year!" he gasped.
"Is something wrong with that?" Tavis inquired.
Avner quickly swallowed his shock. "No, of course not," he said. "I was just thinking that a year will be a long time, away from you and Livia and the others back at the inn."
"I don't think you'll be missing them at all," said the new queen. She clasped Tavis's arm, then added, "I intend to keep all of you very close at hand."