The Ogre's Pact

by Troy Denning

  “Don’t worry,” said Avner. He looped the strap around Runolf’s head once more, then buckled it tight. “I’m not going to let him see anything.”

  Once Tavis arrived, the youth carefully passed Runolf to him. The scout waited for Basil to arrange his tools, then turned Runolf over so the verbeeg could paint the brow. A faint glow of yellow shone around the edges of the blindfold, but otherwise Runolf looked more or less normal for a disembodied head, with pallid flesh and a scalp as shriveled and dry as unoiled leather. He did not say anything or struggle at all, but seemed properly quiet and still for a dead man.

  Basil touched his brush to Runolf’s brow. A wisp of yellow steam began to hiss from the spirit-guardian’s mouth, but the lifeless head still did not resist or object. The runecaster worked slowly, showing no anxiety as he traced his lines. He did not use ink or paint. Rather, magic flowed from the brush itself, the tip trailing glowing green pigment wherever the runecaster drew it. The process took many minutes, and by the time the verbeeg had finished, the distance between Runolf’s temples was completely covered with an intricate tangle of sticklike lines.

  Basil lifted his brush and wiped the tip on his cloak, then returned it to his satchel. “It’s safe. I’ve usurped the shaman’s magic—at least temporarily,” he said. “Remove the belt, and Runolf’s spirit will be ours to command.”

  Tavis turned the head facedown, then did as asked, keeping the blindfold ready just in case Basil’s magic was not as effective as the verbeeg claimed. Runolf’s flesh seemed to come alive beneath his fingers, once again growing supple and full. When the head did not try to attack, or show any objection to the runecaster’s magic, the scout slowly turned him over. The pall of golden radiance that had covered Runolf’s eyes was gone, replaced now by a shimmering yellow mist that was slowly evaporating into the air.

  “Tavis,” Runolf said. There was neither anger nor regret in his voice, only acknowledgement and recognition. “What I have done I did not choose.”

  “I know, Runolf,” the scout replied. “And in my heart, the things I’ll remember are those you did choose: to teach me well, and to serve your king in good faith.”

  “Thank you,” he said, his face showing his relief. “You know you were a son to me.”

  Tavis nodded. “And I hope I made a proud father of you,” he said. “But now we find ourselves facing each other like enemies, and you must tell me why.”

  “I’m not your enemy,” Runolf replied. “And if you’re loyal to Camden, you’ll turn back and never mention what you’ve seen.”

  “The king has given me no commands, so I am free to pursue Brianna, and I will,” Tavis replied. “But you must tell me why he gave his daughter to the ogres.”

  “I beg you, do not ask. To answer is to violate my duty—and yours.”

  “But I have asked,” Tavis replied.

  Runolf clamped his mouth shut, fighting against the command. The golden mist poured from his eyes in billows, and the glowing runes on his forehead shined as bright as flames. He began to tremble, and Tavis feared the strain of the internal battle would destroy the head.

  Finally, Runolf’s lips parted, and a low, croaking voice issued from his throat. “Payment,” he said. “It was the price Camden paid the ogre shaman, Goboka, for helping him win the War of Harts.”

  A cold knot of outrage filled Tavis’s stomach. “Camden sold his daughter for a kingdom?” he gasped. “A man who could do that is no king!”

  “Not a firbolg king, perhaps,” replied Basil. “But most other races—especially men—are easily capable of such betrayals. In fact, among my own people, treachery is considered a virtue for the ruling class.”

  “I’m not interested in the dishonest ways of your people,” Tavis growled. “Nor am I interested in serving a king who holds power in such esteem that he betrays his own flesh to secure it.”

  “You’re judging him too harshly,” said Runolf. “When Goboka offered the ogres’ help in return for Camden’s firstborn daughter, the promise was an easy one to make. Brianna had not yet been conceived, and girls are rare among the Hartwicks.”

  “So I have heard,” Tavis replied. Brianna herself had once explained that her husband would be the first king not descended by direct male lineage from the original Hartwick king. “The princess told me she was only the tenth girl-child in her line, and the first woman to become sole heir to the throne.”

  “Then you know the king never intended to give away his child,” said Runolf. “But now, he must honor the promise. To refuse would mean war with the ogres, and thousands would suffer in Brianna’s place.”

  Tavis’s knees grew weak, his thoughts spinning in his head. Still holding Runolf in his hands, he sat on the ground and felt tears running down his cheeks. “Why?” he asked. “What do the ogres want with her?”

  “I don’t know,” Runolf replied. “Neither does the king.”

  “A more interesting question is how this Goboka knew Brianna would be born,” said Basil. “After a thousand years of kings, it seems strange he should ask for a princess shortly before one becomes the first female heir to Hartsvale.”

  “Goboka set him up!” Avner exclaimed. “I’ll bet the ogres arranged the whole war, just so he’d need them. I’ve helped—er, I’ve seen—charlatans use tricks like that to cheat people at the village fair.”

  “That thought has crossed the king’s mind, I assure you,” Runolf said. “But it makes no difference. If Goboka has the magic to do such a thing, then refusing to honor the promise would be even more dangerous.”

  Basil shook his head. “This shaman’s magic is powerful, but not that powerful. He couldn’t do such a thing without help—very powerful help.” The verbeeg fell silent for a moment, then asked, “Do you know where the ogres were taking Brianna?”

  Runolf’s face went rigid. “They didn’t tell me,” he said in a strained voice.

  “That’s not what I asked you,” Basil pressed. “Do you know where they’re going?”

  The mist in Runolf’s eyes suddenly grew hot, then shot out in two great plumes of searing steam. Tavis dropped the head and scrambled away, his chest and arms throbbing with pain from the scalding he had just received.

  “What’s happening?” the firbolg demanded.

  “The shaman’s fighting my magic,” Basil said. “Amazing!”

  The verbeeg backed away, motioning for his companions to do the same. Then he looked back to Runolf’s head, which was now completely engulfed in the golden steam. “Where are the ogres taking Brianna?” he demanded.

  The runes on Runolf’s brow flared, filling the boiling cloud with a brilliant green glimmer.

  “I overheard a name,” came the croaking reply. “Twilight Vale.”

  The steam cloud began to whirl, draining back into the eyes of the disembodied head. Basil’s runes flashed like lightning, and a deep, sonorous roar rumbled from Runolf’s mouth.

  “Let’s move!” Tavis yelled.

  The companions turned and rushed for the couloir walls, grasping for handholds even as they leaped onto the stony ramparts. With a tremendous crack, Runolf’s head flew apart. A wall of sheer force slammed into their backs, driving the breath from their lungs and pinning them tightly against the crag.

  Tavis did not care. His face pressed against the rock, he clung to his handholds with a death grip. Behind him, the talus shuddered, then, with a deafening roar, it released its hold and went crashing away.

  As the dust began to billow out of the valley below, the scout looked toward Needle Peak. There, standing a little apart from the long ogre line with his eyes fixed on the couloir, was a single burly figure: Goboka.

  7

  Silent Ravine

  A trio of mule deer flashed past Tavis’s shoulder, their hooves pattering almost silently across the needle-covered ground. They ran up the ravine for a short distance, white rumps flashing behind gray pine boles, to where the small valley bent sharply to the north. Here, the doe suddenly pulled up s
hort, then darted into the mouth of a rocky gulch. The three beasts vanished from sight as quickly as they had appeared, leaving the forest as still as it had been a moment earlier.

  Tavis continued to walk, forcing himself not to look back. The skin between his shoulder blades felt cold and clammy, a sure sign that his senses had detected some danger his mind could not yet identify. His first thought was that Morten and the earls were catching up, but he did not hear snapping sticks or rattling armor or alarmed birds, or any other sounds to suggest an ungainly firbolg and eighteen overburdened humans were tramping through the wood behind him. In fact, an unnatural hush had fallen over the entire valley, and he heard nothing but the wind whispering through the pines.

  It had to be ogres. Few things silenced a forest like a pack of ogres, and even mule deer were not so skittish that the doe would have led her fawns so close if she had not been terrified. Somehow, an ogre patrol had slipped in behind Tavis and his companions. This alarmed the scout, not because it surprised him, but because he had expected Goboka to try exactly this maneuver, and he had still failed to notice it happening.

  Tavis was also puzzled by how all three deer had survived long enough to come charging past. Ogres customarily killed every creature they found in their path, which was why the forest grew so quiet upon their approach—most beasts had developed the good sense to hide or flee at the first rancid whiff of ogre flesh. Yet the deer had been fleeing into the wind, which meant the doe would not have smelled the brutes until they were upon her. In this thick forest, she would not have seen or heard the ogres until they were easily within bow range. So how had she and her fawns escaped alive? None of them should have survived the brutes’ poison-tipped arrows, much less all three. Ogres were better hunters than that.

  Tavis pulled his bow off his shoulder and stepped behind a tree. He looked back down the gully, at the same time nocking an arrow, and found the astonished faces of Basil and Avner staring back at him.

  “What are you doing?” Avner gasped.

  “Take cover!” Tavis hissed, genuinely surprised the fleeing deer had failed to alarm the pair. “A pack of ogres snuck in behind us. They’re coming up the ravine right now, hoping to plant their arrows in our backs.”

  Avner threw himself to the ground and crawled behind a boulder. Basil stepped behind a tree next to Tavis. They peered down the ravine, their eyes searching the maze of gray bark for some sign of movement.

  “I don’t see anything,” Avner whispered.

  Neither did Tavis. Save for a few pine boughs swaying gently in the wind, the wood was as still as ice. The scout raised his eyes toward the forest canopy, just in case the ogres were employing the same trick they had used on Coggin’s Rise. He saw nothing in the green needles, not so much as a lurking squirrel or the silhouette of a frightened porcupine. The brutes could hide well enough on the ground, but even they were not so stealthy they could move through the treetops without leaving some sign. If there had been any warriors lurking among the branches, the scout would have seen signs: broken limbs, overturned nests, clawed bark, or something similar.

  “Perhaps you were mistaken,” Basil suggested. “This forest is empty.”

  “Too empty,” Tavis said. “Listen.”

  Basil cocked his head to one side, then shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t hear anything.”

  “Me either!” Avner said. “I don’t hear any singing birds.”

  “Or chattering squirrels, or whistling rockchucks,” Tavis said. “We aren’t alone here.”

  Basil began to fumble through his shoulder satchel. “How much time do we have?”

  “Not enough for you to draw a rune,” Tavis answered. “The ogres are fairly near, or those deer wouldn’t have passed so close to us.”

  Avner swallowed hard. “So we have to fight?”

  “Not yet,” Tavis replied. “If we let the ogres pick the battle site, we’re doomed.”

  “Then how do we escape?” Basil asked.

  Tavis glanced up the ravine. He did not see any ogres ahead, but that, of course, was not as telling as the fact that the doe had turned into the side gully. Besides, if Goboka had sent a pack of warriors to sneak up from behind them, it seemed likely the shaman had also sent a second party to block their route, and the curve ahead was just the place to set such an ambush.

  “They intend to drive us like game. The beaters will come from that direction.” Tavis pointed down the ravine. “They’ll try to chase us into an ambush just around that bend.” The scout pointed up the gully at the curve.

  “That’s no answer to my question,” Basil said, irritated. “How do we escape?”

  Tavis was about to tell the verbeeg to run for the side gulch, but stopped when the distant crack of a snapping branch sounded from somewhere down the ravine. A faint metallic chime instantly followed the noise, then the forest fell silent again.

  Basil stepped from behind his tree. “Ogres don’t trip over sticks, and they don’t wear armor,” he said. “That was an earl.”

  “No doubt But that doesn’t mean I was wrong. The ogre beaters are still behind us. Morten and the earls are behind them.” The scout pointed to where a loutish silhouette with a jutting chin and floppy ears had just slipped from behind the gray trunk of a huge pine.

  Basil looked over his shoulder just in time to see the figure rush down the ravine a few noiseless steps, then vanish from sight behind another tree. The verbeeg’s face paled, and he quickly returned to his own cover.

  “It’s not as bad as it seems,” Tavis said. “We’re almost out of their range.”

  Ogre bows were powerful enough by human standards, but they were no match for Bear Driller. Although the brutes were certainly strong enough to pull a bow as large as the scout’s, they placed their faith in stealth and poison, and therefore preferred smaller weapons that were easier to fire in the tight hiding places from which they so often ambushed their prey. It was a strategy that worked well enough against unwitting opponents, but it had disadvantages in open combat.

  “Being almost out of range isn’t very reassuring,” Basil said. “I’d much prefer to be entirely out of range.”

  “Me, too,” Tavis agreed. “We’ll run for it. I’ll go a few paces up the ravine, then turn around to cover you.”

  “Turn around?” Avner hissed. “You’ll be presenting your back to the ambushers up ahead!”

  “I’ve got to present it to somebody. Besides, the ambushers will hold their attack until the beaters drive all three of us into close range,” he explained. “You two move together. Dodge between trees and don’t waste time looking back.”

  With that, the scout darted two dozen erratic steps up the ravine, changing directions each time he passed a tree, until he heard the soft thump of an ogre arrow striking a nearby pine. Had the range not been so great the shaft would be lodged in his head instead of the bole. He stepped behind a tree, then drew his own bowstring back and looked down the gully. There was no sign of the ogre who had fired at him.

  “Now!” Tavis yelled.

  Basil and Avner leaped out and charged up the ravine together for perhaps five steps, then split and took cover behind two separate trees. The ogres did not show themselves, though Tavis knew they were watching.

  Basil left his cover first, moving two trees toward Avner, then changing his course and rushing in the opposite direction. The young thief followed. When both were in the open, three ogre beaters slipped from their hiding places and drew their bowstrings.

  Tavis fired and pulled another arrow from his quiver. His first shaft struck home before his foes could release their volley, ripping through an ogre’s shoulder and whirling him around. The brute howled in agony and released his shot into the air, then hit the ground with a gaping hole where the scout’s large arrow had passed through his body.

  The bowstrings of the two surviving ogres hummed. Their black arrows came arcing through the forest, the brutes having raised their aim to compensate for the distance. The fate of th
eir companion had clearly disturbed them, for both shafts wobbled through the air with all the grace of pheasants in flight. The scout released his second shot. The string of his mighty bow pulsed with a loud, basal throb, and his arrow streaked away, passing beneath the two ogre shafts in midflight. One of the poisoned arrows dropped a full ten paces shy of its target, while the other careened harmlessly past Avner’s head.

  Tavis’s arrow, driven by a much more powerful bow, struck in the next instant. The shaft tore through its target’s stomach, moving with such velocity that it did not even knock him off his feet. The astonished brute simply dropped his weapons and reached for the hole that had suddenly appeared in his abdomen.

  Without waiting to see him fall, Tavis nocked his third arrow. By the time he raised it to fire, the last ogre had ducked behind cover and was no longer a target. The scout waited for Avner and Basil to hide again, then turned and darted up the ravine toward the side gully.

  This time, Tavis made it clear to the bend before a chorus of bowstrings sounded down the ravine. He threw himself over the trunk of a toppled pine, crashing through its brown-needled boughs. He looked out from beneath the tree and saw a half dozen black shafts drop several paces short of his hiding place.

  Tavis rose to his knees and lifted his arrow over the tree, but he was too slow to find a target. He saw nothing but a handful of gray blurs as the ogres ducked behind their cover.

  “Come on!” Tavis yelled. He knew that he was now within range of the ogre ambushers lurking behind the band, so he stayed low and listened carefully for any noises that suggested they were moving to attack earlier than he expected.

  Basil and Avner rushed forward, crossing and recrossing paths as they ran up the ravine. This time, none of their foes were foolish enough to expose themselves to Tavis’s arrows. The scout began to hope he and his friends might escape into the side gully unscathed, then somewhere up the ravine, an ogre ambusher made the uncharacteristic mistake of stepping on a loose stone.