The Giant Among Us

by Troy Denning

  “What wrong, Dafis?” asked an old man’s voice. “Hurt bad?”

  The scout shook his head. He could still hear Slagfid’s steps pounding toward the ice cavern, but the giant’s bellows had changed to an alarm cry. Tavis could do nothing to silence him, at least not until he changed back to a firbolg. The few moments the transformation required seemed to pass at an interminable pace. Once the frost giant alerted his fellows to the presence of Tavis Burdun, the traells would not have much time to escape—and the scout would have even less time to rescue Avner.

  When the scout’s throat finally cleared and his vision returned to normal, he saw that his rescuers were the same dark-haired traells that had lured Bodvar into the ambush. Neither the young girl nor the man Tavis had inadvertently wounded were present, but he recognized the child’s features in the face of the old man and one other warrior.

  The scout quickly turned toward the ice cavern and saw that Slagfid had already disappeared inside. Tavis did not speak the runearrow’s command word. Even if his voice would carry that far, it was already too late to stop the giant from sounding the alarm. It would be far wiser to reserve the magic until later, when he could see what results the explosion might bring.

  “Here, Dafis.” The old man thrust the scout’s quiver and bow into his hands. “My name Olchak. Afner say give these to you.”

  “Thank you,” the scout replied. “I’m grateful for your help against the giant.”

  “Frost giants!” Olchak spat into the snow. “Dey should stay in Ice Plains, where dey belong!”

  “Perhaps we can send them back,” Tavis said, looking toward the ice cave. “Will you help me, Olchak?”

  “Dat why we came,” the old man replied. “What you want?”

  Tavis checked the supply of arrows remaining in his quiver—three runearrows, several dozen normal arrows, and, of course, the golden shaft reserved for Brianna. He started toward Graytusk, speaking as he moved.

  “See if you can find some frost giant rope.” The scout was still limping, for the transformation had done nothing to mend his wounded toe. “And if you can, take it to the cave entrance. Here’s what I want you to do.”

  * * * * *

  The remorhaz struck at Avner yet again. The youth angled his spear toward the worm’s descending head. As it had many times before, the beast stopped short of impaling itself. But this time, it twined a face tentacle around the shaft and yanked.

  Avner held firm, rising off the ice as the beast tried to jerk the spear from his hands. The youth circled the end of his weapon over the tentacle, then flicked the tip down. The steel head severed the tendril. The worm bellowed in pain and, madly shaking its head, retreated.

  The frost giants roared their approval.

  Avner flicked the tendril away and started forward to press his advantage. Then he remembered Tavis’s ambiguous warning about the beast’s back and decided to wait. The youth retreated to his bloody corner and braced the butt of his weapon in its cup.

  A disappointed murmur rustled through the cavern. Avner did not care. He was fighting for his life, not the amusement of the frost giants.

  The remorhaz flapped its head, spraying droplets of sizzling blood across the ice. The beast cautiously advanced again. It had just closed to striking range when Slagfid’s voice rumbled over the pit like thunder.

  “Help!” His voice was so pained that it was barely intelligible. “My eye!”

  The crowd on the pit rim slowly parted, then Slagfid’s head came into view. The giant held one hand cupped over his eye, with the dark fletching of one of Tavis’s runearrows protruding between his fingers. A stream of blood was flowing down his cheek and pouring off his jaw in a bright red cascade.

  “What happened?” demanded Hagamil.

  Slagfid’s only reply was an incoherent wail.

  Avner did not have time to watch what happened next, for the remorhaz was approaching again. This time, the worm scuttled toward him sideways. It held its head low to the ground, while, twenty feet away, its tail twitched high the air.

  The youth saw at once that the beast had at last hit upon a strategy to defeat him. If he lowered the spear to defend against the head, the remorhaz would lash out with its tail and batter him senseless in a single blow. If he kept his weapon high, the worm would grab him by the ankles.

  There was only one thing left to do.

  Avner hurled his spear at the remorhaz’s eye. The worm jerked its mouth up and snatched the weapon out of the air. The beast snapped the shaft in two with a single chomp, but the maneuver bought the youth enough time to dart out of the corner.

  The creature whirled around and hobbled after him, still crippled by its shackles and broken legs. The youth stopped in the center of the pit, where he would have plenty of room to keep dodging. Eventually, he knew, the remorhaz would wear him down, but his deftness was the only weapon Avner had left.

  * * * * *

  The second time Tavis stepped through the cavern mouth, the ice cave felt immeasurably vast. The icicles that had appeared to hang so low to a stone giant now looked as high as stars, and the far wall seemed a distant blue horizon.

  The air reverberated with the booming voices of astonished giants, dozens at once yelling at Slagfid, calling him a fool and shouting questions. The warrior was in too much pain to provide the explanations they demanded. He seemed unable to do anything except bellow in agony and keep his hands clutched over his eye. As a result, the entire tribe’s attention remained fixed on him.

  Keeping a careful eye on the throng, Tavis sneaked through the cave’s mouth and angled toward the log ladder lying near the pit. As the scout moved, he felt the cold hand of panic beginning to squeeze his heart. The clamor in the cavern prevented him from hearing anything in the pit, but he found it ominous that the spectators had lost interest in the remorhaz.

  Tavis had nearly reached the log when Hagamil’s voice blustered above the rest. “Quiet!”

  The cavern instantly fell so silent that Tavis could hear the soft clatter of the remorhaz’s many legs in the pit below. The worm sounded slow and languid, and the scout could also detect the sporadic clanking of a chain, as though the beast were dragging shackles across the ice. In his mind, the scout envisioned the creature hauling Avner’s limp body into a corner.

  On the far side of the pit, Hagamil grasped Slagfid by the shoulders. “Be quiet, you!” he yelled. “Tell me what happened, then I’ll fetch Halflook to take care of your eye.”

  This offer seemed to help Slagfid get a hold on himself. The frost giant quieted, then gasped, “Tavis Burdun shot me!”

  “That can’t be!” Hagamil roared, shaking the injured warrior. “Sharpnose said he killed Tavis Burdun!”

  Tavis reached the ladder and crouched down at the end. He braced his shoulder against the log, ready to push it forward the instant the giants made enough noise to cover the sound.

  “That wasn’t Sharpnose here,” Slagfid tried to explain. “It was Tavis Burdun, pretending to be Sharpnose.”

  This drew an incredulous murmur from the giants.

  Hagamil promptly silenced them with a single, roving glare. “How could a little firbolg pretend to be a stone giant?”

  Slagfid did not answer immediately, and the clattering of remorhaz legs fell silent. The scout’s heart felt as if it would burst.

  After a moment, Slagfid said, “He was wearing a mask.”

  A chorus of thunderous laughter shook the cavern. Tavis shoved the log forward until the end hung over the edge. The far side of the pit floor came into view, where a spear lay broken and discarded. A trail of blood ran from one corner toward the center of the arena, and that was all the scout could see. The hand around his heart clamped tighter, filling his entire being with a sick, cold ache.

  Tavis couldn’t leave, not until he saw the body. With the thunderous guffaws of the giants still shaking the cavern, he lay beside the log and crept forward, pulling Bear Driller along with him.

  “Quiet!
” Hagamil thundered. The laughter died away, and the chieftain asked, “A mask, Slagfid?”

  “It was silver,” the warrior said meekly. “It fell off Sharpnose’s face, and then he changed into Tavis Burdun.”

  “And he shot you in the eye?”

  “No. There was about a hundred traells waiting for him. One of them did it, and it hurts pretty bad,” Slagfid whimpered. “Now I’ve told all I know. Call Halflook, like you promised.”

  “Call Halflook?” the chieftain roared. “After you let Tavis Burdun escape—for the second time?”

  The scout glanced over the log and saw Hagamil jerk Slagfid’s hand away from the wounded giant’s face.

  “You don’t deserve no shaman!” the chieftain growled.

  With that, Hagamil pinched the runearrow between his thumb and finger, then plucked it from the warrior’s eye. Although the shaft was little more than a sliver to a frost giant, Hagamil’s careless extraction resulted in the removal of more than the splinter. Slagfid howled in pain, slapping one palm over his emptied socket and grasping after Hagamil’s hand with the other. Wincing at the chieftain’s cruelty, Tavis lowered his head and dragged himself to the edge of the pit.

  What the scout saw nearly made him howl more loudly than Slagfid—though in joy, not pain. Avner and the remorhaz stood in the center of the pit, warily circling each other. The battle had obviously been a difficult one for the boy, at least if his bloodied back and chattering teeth were any indication. But the youth had given better than he had received. Blood was streaming down the remorhaz’s face from an amputated tentacle, it was listing badly toward several mangled legs, and it was holding one segment of its body higher than the rest to keep its manacled legs off the ice.

  Wondering how Avner had ever shackled the beast, Tavis nocked an arrow and stood, already pulling his bowstring back. He loosed the shaft the instant his feet were steady. The missile did not pierce so much as shatter the ice worm’s chitinous head, and the beast collapsed to the floor in a clattering heap.

  Avner spun around and looked up at Tavis, silently mouthing, “It’s about time!”

  The youth wasn’t the only who noticed the remorhaz’s death. At the sound of its clattering demise, Hagamil and several other giants looked into the pit, their faces betraying their disappointment at missing the climax of the worm-baiting. When they saw Tavis’s arrow lying near the lifeless beast, their expressions quickly changed to bewilderment. The chieftain was the quickest to realize what had happened and lifted his gaze to the rim of the pit

  “There’s Tavis Burdun!” Hagamil gestured at the scout with the gruesome orb at the end of the runearrow. “After him!”

  “Basil is wise!” Tavis yelled.

  The runearrow exploded in Hagamil’s grasp, hurling the chieftain—now missing one hand—and all the giants behind him into the wall. The impact dislodged a dozen huge icicles, which dropped from the ceiling like spears and lodged themselves amidst the confused tangle.

  Avner started toward the scout’s corner in a slipping, sliding sprint Tavis placed a foot in one of the log’s enormous steps and gave it a shove, at the same time pulling a regular arrow from his quiver. As the youth climbed the ladder, the scout nocked his shaft and started toward the exit.

  Clutching the bloody stump at the end of his wrist, Hagamil rose and moved to cut the escapees off. Tavis fired, and the arrow lodged itself deep in the giant’s midriff. Although the impact hardly slowed the frost giant, his face paled to a sickly shade of ivory. He looked down at the dark fletching in horror.

  “Another step and I’ll say the words!” Tavis warned.

  Hagamil stopped, two of his enormous paces from the exit. Several more warriors extracted themselves from the groaning pile behind the chieftain and came to stand at his side, but he motioned for them to go no farther. The scout drew a real runearrow from his quiver, but did not nock it

  “If you let us go, that arrow in your stomach won’t explode,” Tavis said, choosing his words carefully and keeping a sharp eye on Hagamil. “But the instant anyone so much as steps toward the exit, you die.”

  The threat caused several giants to raise a thoughtful brow.

  “And if I go, so does Halflook,” Hagamil was quick to add. “You don’t want to be without your shaman, do you?”

  The giants frowned and stepped back, giving Tavis and Avner a clear path. The two slipped along the wall, taking care to stay well out of Hagamil’s reach, and backed through the exit into the windy night The scout glanced down the slope to make certain Graytusk was where he had left the beast, then nocked his third-to-last runearrow.

  Avner whispered, “I hope you noticed that isn’t a runearrow in Hagamil’s gut”

  “I can’t afford to waste any,” the scout explained.

  From inside the cavern echoed a nervous groan, followed by Hagamil’s angry voice, “It’s out Get them!”

  “Now, Olchak!” Tavis yelled, praying the old man and his fellows had gotten into position in time. “They’re coming!”

  Olchak and two assistants leaped from their hiding places beside the cavern, tugging on one end of a thick rope. As they pulled, a heavy line rose out of the snow at the cave’s mouth, coming taut at a height of about six feet. The traells quickly knotted their rope around an ice crag, then sprinted toward Graytusk.

  Tavis pulled his bowstring back, aiming his runearrow at the ice far above the cavern mouth. He had to hold the tension for only a moment before the first frost giant came running out of the cave. The brute’s ankle caught on the line and snapped it like twine, but that did not save him from tripping and crashing face-first into the snow. The second giant fell over him, and the scout released his shaft as the third warrior appeared in the entrance. The runearrow struck perhaps a hundred feet above their heads, burying itself deep into the icy cliff.

  “Basil is wise!” Avner yelled gleefully.

  A deafening crack rang out across the caldera, then a mountain of ice crashed down on the fallen giants. They did not even have time to scream before they vanished beneath the roaring avalanche.

  “That should keep Hagamil penned until morning,” Tavis said, yelling to make himself heard above the din. He took Avner by the arm and limped toward Graytusk. “Let’s hope there isn’t another exit.”

  “Yeah,” said Avner. “Then it’d be a lot easier for them to beat us to Split Mountain.”

  “Split Mountain?” Tavis asked. “Why would we go there?”

  Avner shrugged. “I don’t know.” A mischievous grin crept across the youth’s lips. “But the traells heard you say you wanted to go to some meeting the frost giants are having. That’s where it’s supposed to be.”

  13

  Blizzard

  The gray snow clouds streamed across the ominous white sky like battle standards, which, to Tavis, they were. The storm had hung back all day long, licking at Graytusk’s wooly heels as he ambled across glacier and valley, his sauntering gait lapping up miles as briskly as the strides of a galloping horse. For a while, the scout had thought the beast would stay ahead of the blizzard. But now, with the sky darkening toward dusk and hoarfrost swirling in the wind, he saw that his forecast had been little more than a forlorn hope. The clouds were pouring over the mountains with a speed that warned of the storm’s power, and already the mammoth’s fur was covered with those tiny snow stars that meant the blizzard would be as cold as it was ferocious.

  Tavis ran his gaze around the broad cirque into which they were descending. The basin was shaped like a human jaw, with dozens of jagged spires surrounding a flat, mottled vale of pale meadows and swarthy stands of spruce. To the scout’s dismay, low-hanging clouds with long skirts of swirling snow already capped most of the peaks. Any of those pinnacles could be Split Mountain and he would never see it.

  Tavis glanced over his shoulder, where Avner and Olchak rode. Both the boy and old man sat sideways, for their legs were too short to straddle the mammoth’s broad back. They held themselves in place by clut
ching a makeshift harness that Avner had rigged from a frost giant rope.

  “Are you sure this is the valley, Olchak?” the scout asked.

  The old man looked around the cirque. By the vacant look in his eye, Tavis could tell the traell did not recognize the place.

  “A shortcut doesn’t do much good if we don’t know where it comes out,” the scout grumbled.

  “You say ‘take Split Mountain fast!’ ” Olchak replied. “Olchak do that Mountain here somewhere—if not this valley, next one.”

  “It’d better be this one,” Tavis muttered. “By the time we reach the floor, we won’t be able to see Graytusk’s trunk, much less Split Mountain.”

  “What if we don’t find it?” asked Avner. The youth turned toward Tavis, the hood of his borrowed bearskin parka pulled far forward to shelter his face from the cold. Despite the boy’s precautions, his nose and cheeks had turned pallid white. “I mean, what if we don’t find Split Mountain tonight?”

  Tavis fixed an icy glare on the youth, then drew a heavy fur muffler from his satchel. “Tie this over your face, Avner.” He tossed the scarf at the boy. “You’re already frostbitten.”

  Without saying another word, the scout turned around to guide Graytusk into the basin. The task was largely unnecessary. The mammoth knew his own limitations and was traversing the slope at a shallow angle, taking care to pick solid footing and keep his immense weight squarely over his legs. The beast’s only fault lay in his habit of brushing against the goblet pines that flecked the hillside, forcing his passengers to keep ducking or risk being swept off their mount by a face full of stiff boughs. Tavis did his best to guide the mammoth away from the trees, but the creature seemed to grow only more stubborn as the storm worsened.

  By the time they reached the bottom of the hill, a gauzy veil of snow had fallen over the valley. The thickets of weeping spruce ahead seemed no more than drooping silhouettes. The lush meadows of alpine grass became patches of unblemished white against a streaky background of blue-tinted pearl. Even the craggy peaks were hidden behind an impenetrable curtain of white. Tavis knew he and his companions would be hard-pressed to reach any of the pinnacles, much less the correct one.