by Troy Denning
With that, the two soldiers clambered out of the room.
Brianna smiled at Tavis, then said, “This is going to hurt”
The scout winced, but nodded.
Brianna uttered the mystic syllables to her spell. The flames on her amulet began to dance and glow, first red, then orange and yellow. When they turned white, the brimstone powder ignited in a single brilliant flash. A golden fire danced over the scout’s feet, filling the air with wisps of black smoke. A long hiss of pain slipped from Tavis’s clenched teeth, but his frost-blackened flesh returned to its normal color and the swelling subsided. When Hiatea’s healing fires finally died, the firbolg’s feet looked more or less normal. The skin was still slightly gray and there was a little puffiness around the toes, but it looked as though he would be able to run.
The clack of firing crossbows echoed up the stairwell. A giant’s scream rolled through the temple window, then the veteran began yelling, “Reload, reload, reload!”
Brianna sprinkled more brimstone powder on the scout’s scorched flesh, covering him with a fine yellow coating from his ankles to his chin. She cast her next healing spell. As it had before, the powder ignited in a white flash, spreading yellow fire over Tavis’s body. The scout let out a long groan. When the golden flames died away, he looked as though he had suffered a bad sunburn, but the blisters and ugly patches of scorched hide had vanished.
A crash reverberated up of the stairwell, and the young soldier cried out. The floor joists crackled and groaned, dropping the corner of the room another two feet, and a long crack shot across the temple ceiling.
“I think we’re out of time.” Avner’s gaze was fixed on the widening gap over their heads.
“I have one more spell to cast.” Brianna motioned the boy toward Tavis’s head, then grabbed the arm of the scout’s dislocated shoulder. “Hold him steady.”
Avner kneeled beside the bench and wrapped his arms around Tavis’s collar.
The scout looked up at Brianna. “This is really going to hurt, isn’t it?”
Brianna smiled reassuringly. “What makes you say that?”
As she spoke, the queen gave a sharp tug on the scout’s arm. The shoulder slipped back into its socket with a sickening pop, and the scout yelled in pain. Brianna laid her amulet over the joint, but did not sprinkle any brimstone powder on it.
The queen uttered her incantation. Hiatea’s spear turned white, and its golden flames danced over the firbolg’s skin. The magical fire continued to flicker for several moments, its mending heat sinking deep into Tavis’s flesh to strengthen the weakened tendons and muscles. When the flames finally died away, Brianna took her amulet off the firbolg’s shoulder, leaving a spear-shaped brand where it had lain.
“Now can we go?” Avner demanded.
A thunderous boom shook the keep, and pieces of rock began to drop through the crack in the ceiling. The two soldiers in the stairwell remained ominously silent.
“I think we’d better.” Tavis rose and slipped his cloak over his shoulders, then swung his arm in a circle to test its mobility. He smiled and grabbed his bow and quiver, saying, “My thanks, Majesty. I’ll go first”
Stopping only to pick up her satchel of spell components, the queen followed Avner and Tavis out of the temple. They found the stairway half blocked by rubble. It sagged toward a large hole in the wall. There was no sign of what had happened to the older soldier, but the young one lay dead at the edge of the breach, one arm stretched into the void. Through the gap came a few wisps of acrid black smoke and the steady din of the giants pounding at the keep foundations. When Brianna looked out the hole, she could see two frost giants and several hill giants clambering over the rubble of the inner curtain.
Tavis started down the stairs, staying close to the interior wall. Avner followed close behind, with Brianna bringing up the rear. They were about halfway to the breach when the ivory-colored hand of a frost giant appeared in the hole, feeling around for a hand grip.
Tavis stopped and looked back at Brianna. “Let me have your hand-axe,” he whispered.
The queen slipped the silver-plated weapon off her belt and passed it over Avner’s head. As the scout descended the stairs, she took Hiatea’s amulet between her fingers, hoping she would not need to cast another healing spell soon.
The giant turned his hand sideways and wrapped his fingers over the edge of the gap. The jagged stub of a wrist came through the hole and pressed against the other side of the breach. A thin layer of red, delicate hide had already formed over the bone, with a series of crooked seams where a shaman had stitched the skin closed.
“Hagamil!” Tavis hissed.
The scout reached the breach and swung Brianna’s axe at the good hand. The blade bit deeply into the joint of the middle finger. The blow elicited a thunderous bellow of pain, but the giant did not lose his grip. He swung his other arm across, smashing the stub of his wrist against Tavis’s flank. The firbolg bounced off the wall and fell on the stairs.
The giant’s head rose into view. The brute had piercing blue eyes, with a full face, long yellow hair, and a thick beard. To Brianna’s astonishment, the end of an iron crossbow bolt protruded from one of his temples. There was no blood or any sign of an entrance wound. The dart was simply there, as though it were a part of his head.
As the scout scrambled to his feet, the frost giant squinted at him through the shattered wall. “Tavis Burdun!” he growled. Hagamil looked past the scout to Brianna, then turned to yell over his shoulder, “Hey, Julien! Here they are! Both of ’em!”
Tavis moved forward to attack again, but Hagamil quickly brought the stub of his wrist around. The scout stopped a few feet short of the giant’s reach.
A muffled crash rumbled up from somewhere lower down in the keep. The staircase trembled, then a series of hairline cracks appeared in the steps between Brianna and her bodyguard.
“Tavis, maybe Brianna ought to handle this,” said Avner, stepping back toward the queen. “You’re about to go down the fast way!”
As the youth spoke, Brianna extended her arm, pointing the tip of her spear amulet at the iron bolt protruding from the giant’s temple. Tavis looked down at the cracks widening beneath his feet, then turned and rushed up the stairs toward the queen.
Brianna spoke her incantation. Yelling in alarm, Hagamil turned to leap off the tower. He was too late. A bolt of lightning sizzled from the queen’s talisman straight to the iron quarrel in his temple. It struck with a thunderous crackle, then the giant fell out of sight, leaving only a puff of pink-tinged smoke where his head had been a moment before.
Brianna felt Tavis grab her arm and pull her up the stairs. She looked down and saw the step in front of her falling away. The lower half of the stairway was tumbling into the inner ward.
“Come on,” Tavis said. “That was Arlien that Hagamil called to. He’ll be coming any minute. We’ve got to get ready.”
“Ready?” Brianna asked, her stomach knotting with apprehension at the thought of facing the prince again. “Then you have a plan?”
“It’s a little rough, but I think it’ll work,” he said, starting up the stairway. “I’ll explain it to you as soon as we find a good place to make a stand.”
Brianna turned to follow, nearly falling as the step beneath her lower foot cracked loose. It dropped more than three stories into the rubble below.
“A good place to make a stand?” she gasped. “Where do you think we’re going to find that in all this havoc?”
The answer came from the temple door, where Avner stood looking toward the front of the chamber. “It may have to be right here,” he said. “We seem to be surrounded.”
18
Secret Passages
Before following Avner into the temple, Tavis glanced past Brianna, down the crumbling staircase. In the outer ward far below he saw Arlien clambering toward the base of the keep. The scout saw no sign of Basil in the rubble of the inner curtain and did not know what had become of the runecaster. Ne
vertheless, it seemed clear that the verbeeg’s last spell had been an effective one, for the prince’s armor was battered and gouged, with sizable gaps showing in many seams. It also seemed just as clear that any damage Arlien had suffered would not prevent him from pursuing the queen. He had tossed his helmet aside and was staring up at his quarry with a dark, acid gaze.
“Tavis, are you coming?” Avner was calling from inside the temple. “I really think this is something you should handle.”
The scout turned and stepped through the doorway. He saw the top of the altar lying on the floor and a procession of Cuthbert’s men climbing out of the dais. Four warriors already stood near the front of the room, casting nervous glances at the crumbling ceiling above their heads. All of the men were fully armored, with loaded crossbows in their hands, full quivers hanging across their shoulders, and hefty axes attached to their belts. Judging by the amount of space they had left between themselves and the altar, they expected at least eight more men to follow. The scout could already see the helmet of the next one rising into sight.
Tavis pulled Avner back, passing both him and the hand-axe to Brianna. He nocked an arrow in his bow and pointed it at the warrior climbing out of the altar.
“I’d advise you not to come any farther, soldier,” the scout said. “I may not be holding Bear Driller, but at this range, even this bow has enough power to bore a hole through your steel hat.”
The man stopped and turned toward the scout, eyes wide with astonishment. The four soldiers already in the room gripped their crossbows more tightly, but wisely refrained from raising their weapons. The scout could have killed any two of them before the first one aimed his quarrel.
“Tavis, what are you doing?” gasped Brianna.
“I overheard the ettin—Arlien—say that he’d spare Cuthbert and his family in exchange for betraying you,” explained the scout “Apparently he accepted.”
“How dare you insinuate such a thing!” shouted the earl’s muffled voice. The soldier in the altar retreated down the stairs, then Cuthbert clanged into view, his visor pushed up to reveal a face red with fury. “I assure you, once we’re done with the giants, I’ll defend my name on the field of honor!”
“Defend your name wherever you like,” Tavis said, his arrow now trained on the earl. “It won’t change what I heard at Split Mountain.”
“Or what I saw in this castle,” Avner added.
The keep shook under a fresh wave of frost giant assaults, shaking a few more steps loose from the shattered stairway below. Brianna and Avner shoved into the temple behind the scout, pushing him farther into the room.
“And exactly what did you see, Avner?” Brianna demanded.
“Arlien and Cuthbert coming through the inner gate together, and they didn’t look too mad at each other,” the youth explained. “Tavis fired on the prince from the keep, so they split up. Arlien came down the ramparts, and the earl came through his secret passage. Now here we are, trapped in the middle.”
“I came through the passage because the prince barred the gate tower door. That’s when I knew for certain that he was a spy,” Cuthbert replied. “I assure you, he never would have escaped my men if Tavis’s arrows hadn’t come as such a surprise.”
The earl climbed out of the altar, then glanced at the temple’s sagging corner and motioned at the four men already in the room. “You four go back down and wait for us.”
None of the warriors moved, and one said, “It appears you may need us here, Earl.”
“Nonsense. This is just a misunderstanding,” Cuthbert said. “Besides, as a noble, I live at the queen’s pleasure. Even if she allowed an impudent firbolg to kill me, you would not interfere.”
“As you order, Milord,” grunted the warrior.
The soldier and his three companions clanked toward the altar.
“Well said, Earl,” Brianna commented. “But Tavis is hardly an impudent—”
The queen was interrupted when the walls around the temple’s sagging corner fell away, leaving a large section of floor hanging free over the ward. Although Tavis could not see what was happening at the base of the building, he did spy several frost giants staring up toward the temple staircase as though watching Arlien climb. If the collapsing wall had caused the prince any trouble, the scout saw no sign of it in their faces.
Tavis turned to Cuthbert. “Tell your men to clear the passage,” he ordered. “And if you try to lead us into a trap—”
“I won’t. I assure you.” The earl pointed to the arrow in Tavis’s bow. “You can hold that on my back. If anything happens, I’ll be the first to die.”
“Sounds good to me,” said Avner.
Without awaiting permission, the youth went to the altar and climbed in after the last warrior. Brianna started to follow, but Tavis restrained her with a hand.
“Cuthbert first, then me, then you.” The scout motioned the earl into the altar. “And I won’t hesitate—”
“I’m sure you won’t,” the earl replied. “But please don’t insult me further by dwelling on the matter.”
Cuthbert climbed over the lip of the altar and clanged down the steps. Tavis slipped into the narrow stairway somewhat more silently, bowing his shoulders inward so they would fit between the dusty walls. He kept his arrow pointed at the earl, who had kindly illuminated himself by taking a burning torch from one of his men.
The earl clanged down the murky corridor, following several paces behind Avner and his own warriors. Tavis waited until Brianna was behind him, then stooped beneath the tunnel’s low ceiling and followed at a distance of four paces. In the cramped confines, the acrid torch fumes were as thick as the oil smoke billowing over the ramparts.
From the back of the line, Brianna asked, “Exactly where are you taking us, Earl?”
“To the secret passage in my map room. My wife and daughters are waiting there,” Cuthbert replied, speaking over his shoulder. There was a catch in his voice. “I’m afraid Cuthbert Castle has fallen. I’d like you to escort my family to safety.”
“What about the hill giants?” Avner demanded, his voice echoing back up the corridor. “Don’t you have any other secret tunnels out of here?”
“One other, but it opens beyond the near shore—where the frost giants came from,” the earl replied.
“What about boats?” the youth asked. “You must have boats.”
“I do,” the earl replied. “In fact, Prince Arlien had the temerity to suggest I could save my castle by allowing him to take Brianna out on one of them.”
“How would that have saved you?” the queen asked.
“Once the giants saw you leaving, the prince assured me they would have abandoned their attack,” the earl replied. “I would have cuffed him, had one of Tavis’s arrows not bounced off his armor at that very moment.”
“How convenient for you,” Tavis remarked dryly.
“Yes, quite,” the earl replied, apparently missing the sarcasm in the scout’s voice. “I’m sure he would have killed me on the spot. But, returning to Avner’s concerns about eluding the giants, it really is best to use the map room passage. You see, before he died, the captain of my Keep Guard spied the queen’s army coming down from the Shepherd’s Nightmare. You may have to fight past a few hill giant sentries when you leave the passage, but at least help will be close at hand.”
“Earl, you keeping say ‘you,’ ” Brianna observed.
“This is my ancestral castle, Majesty.” Cuthbert stopped and ran his hand over a rough-hewn wall. “Now that it has fallen, I have no desire to leave alive.”
Brianna nodded. “I understand,” she said. “But the responsibility does not lie on your shoulders. I brought all this on Cuthbert Castle. If I leave, then so must you.”
The earl shook his head. “Not so, my queen.” He wiped a tear from his eye. “You are Hartsvale. If you perish, the rest of the kingdom follows. It has been my duty to defend you, and it is my regret that I have done so poorly.”
Tavis felt
Brianna touch his shoulder. “You can lower your arrow,” she said. “I think we can trust Cuthbert.”
“We can’t be certain,” the scout countered. “Arlien’s tongue was slicker than the earl’s.”
Brianna reached around him and pushed the arrow down. “If Cuthbert were going to betray me, don’t you think he would have done it before the giants demolished his castle?”
The scout frowned, unable to think of any reason even the most treacherous traitor would have waited so long. He took his arrow off his bowstring and returned it to his quiver.
“My apologies, Earl,” Tavis said. “The queen has often said I must learn to make allowances for human nature. If you wish to avenge my slight on the field of honor—”.
“That won’t be necessary, Tavis,” Brianna interrupted. “After Arlien’s duplicity, you’re right to be cautious. And speaking of the prince, why don’t you tell us about this plan you have for dealing with him?”
* * * * *
At last, Basil saw sunlight filtering through the rubble above, and he sniffed the caustic smoke of burning oil. Wine had never smelled so sweet—even to him. The runecaster pulled another block out of the wreckage overhead and tossed it toward the other end of the cramped chamber.
The verbeeg was trapped in a storage room buried in the curtain foundation. By the pale illumination seeping down from above, he could see a small door near where he had been tossing the stones. As battered and weak as he was after his fall with the collapsing ramparts, it might have been easier to crawl out through that portal. But the runecaster could not bring himself to do it. The passage beyond was musty, as black as pitch, and small. He’d rather face the giants than risk lodging himself in the depths of that gloomy tunnel.
Basil removed another block of jagged ceiling, then backed away as a cascade of shattered stones and splintered timbers poured into the chamber. When it stopped, a pillar of brilliant white light was shining down through the swirling dust. The verbeeg crawled atop the rubble and stuck his head up through the hole, pinching his eyes shut against the sky’s effulgence.