by Troy Denning
“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?”
“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 you’ll 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 finge
rs 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.”