by Troy Denning
With unbelievable speed, the shaman leaped up and reached for Brianna. Pushing one foot into her stirrup, the princess raised the other and thrust it at the brute's chest. The blow landed with a solid thump, and the ogre tumbled backward.
Brianna planted her heels in her mount's flanks. As the mare sprang forward, two more ogres dropped out of the aspen trees a short distance ahead. They drew their bows back, leveling their black arrows at Blizzard's breast The princess jerked the reins hard, turning away as the strings throbbed. The dark shafts hissed away into the forest, then Brianna found herself sailing through the air as her mount leaped a toppled tree.
To her horror, she saw two more ogres rising from hiding places behind the fallen bole. Both brutes tossed their bows aside and leaped for her mount's front legs. Blizzard crashed into them with a tremendous thump, and for a moment Brianna thought the big mare would bowl the pair over.
Then she felt Blizzard's head drop. The mare's rear hooves clattered off the fallen tree with a hollow clacking, and from between the horse's ears, Brianna saw the ground rising fast. The princess released the reins and pulled her feet from the stirrups, then pitched over the mare's head into a patch of mossy ground. She tumbled head over heels, coming to a stop only when she slammed into a granite boulder.
Brianna tried to gather her feet and rise, but the struggle was too much. She had lost her wind, and her ribs were exploding with pain as she fought to regain her breath. Her head was swimming. Her body ached in a hundred places, though thankfully nowhere did she feel the sharp agony of a broken bone.
Still, Brianna was hardly in a good position, and she would need help to escape. She raised her hands toward her necklace, but stopped when ogre feet began to surround her. Several leathery hands grabbed her wrists and jerked her off the ground. Brianna found herself Suspended between two ogres, her arms drawn painfully taut and the white pupils of the angry shaman glaring into her eyes.
"You want we should hurt you?" The ogre slapped
Brianna across the face. Her head snapped to the side, and she felt a tooth fly from her month. "We do it good. All same to us."
The shaman hit her again, this time smashing his fist into her midsection. Brianna's stomach revolted at the abuse, and she vomited on the ground. A dozen paces, away, Blizzard whinnied in anger and struggled to her feet. Glaring at the ogre's back, the mare started forward.
"No, Blizzard!" Brianna called. The command came out half garbled, for her mouth was full of blood and her cheek badly swollen. "Stand!"
When the horse obeyed, the ogre nodded his head approvingly. "That better." he commented. "Smart girl."
The shaman looked at two of his followers, then nodded at the horse. They nocked arrows and raised their bows.
"No!" Brianna yelled. "Run, Blizzard!"
Her warning proved unnecessary. By the time the pair released their bowstrings, Blizzard had leaped over the fallen tree and was galloping through the forest at top speed. The shaman watched until the mare vanished behind the white trunks of the aspen trees, then he shrugged.
"Too bad." He turned back to Brianna. "Horse taste good."
Brianna sighed, relieved that she would not have to watch the ogres butcher her beloved Blizzard, then turned her attention back to the troubles at hand.
"Someone sent you for me. Who?" the princess-demanded. "Whatever he's paying, my father will double it."
The shaman looked at her loathingly, then pulled a length of thick, braided-leather cord from inside his cloak. Her two captors pinned her to the ground, then he silently began to bind her hands. * 3* A Sudden Farewell
Tavis dropped his rucksack beside the well and paused to take one last look at the Weary Giant. The place could hardly he called a mansion, but the doors hung straight and storm shutters flanked every window. He was leaving the inn better than he had found it, and that gave him some small comfort.
The scout had not even considered remaining in Slag-wick. With the princess herself obliged to speak against him, pleading his case before the king could only lead to disaster for all concerned. Brianna would be publicly disgraced for associating with a thief, a pall of suspicion would be cast over the orphans, and Tavis would have his hands lopped off as punishment for a crime he had not committed. The only thing to do was obey the princess's wish and leave Hartsvale as soon as possible.
"Will you truly miss this place so much?" asked Basil. The verbeeg stood next to Tavis, his sack of stolen books slung over his shoulder. "I'd think a man of your nature would find the life of an innkeeper a trifle boring."
Tavis did not look at the verbeeg. "I'll miss the children," he said. "And if you think helping those in need could ever bore me, you know nothing of my nature."
"Firbolgs!" Basil shook his head in bewilderment. "It's beyond me how such a naive race prospers."
Across the courtyard, Avner stepped from the lodge, followed by the other orphans. They had wrapped their possessions into woolen blankets and slung the small bundles over their shoulders: their feet were clad in heavy moose-hide boots Tavis had made for them. Each child carried an empty waterskin, and they all had grim, determined looks on their small faces.
"Is that all you're taking with you to Princess Brianna's?"Tavis asked. "You're going to be there a long time."
"We're not going to the castle," answered Avner. He motioned for the others to fill their waterskins. "You don't think we'd abandon you just because you got in trouble, do you?"
Tavis smiled sadly. "Of course not," he replied. "But you can't come with me."
"Why not?" Avner demanded. He dropped his bundle on the ground and untied it. "We've got everything we need: wool blankets, warm clothes, daggers-"
"The Ice Spires are no place for children." Tavis said. "Brianna can take much better care of you in her castle than I can in the mountains,"
"No!" Avner yelled. "I'm not going with her. She's the one who's sending you away!"
"She thinks I'm a thief." Tavis's voice grew more stem. "And we both know why she believes that."
"So I'll tell her what really happened." Avner offered.
Tavis shook his head. "Someday, but she won't believe you now," he said. "She'd think you were trying to protect me."
"Then she's stupid." Avner sniffed.
"Why? Because she knows you'd lie for me?"
Avner looked at the ground. "I wouldn't be lying." he answered, dodging the question. "It's the truth."
"After what happened, we can't expect her to believe that," Tavis replied. "So go to the castle and do as the princess says. She cares for you as much as I do."
"But I don't care for her," Avner objected. "I like you."
"Then you'll do as Tavis says." said Livia. At fourteen, she was the second oldest of the orphans, and would soon blossom into a beautiful young woman. Already, she had riveting brown eyes and an alluring smile. Livia looked at the other children, then said, "Life's going to be hard enough on Tavis without us to watch over. If we really care for him, we'll go to Castle Hartwick."
Tavis nodded at Livia. "That's right. Knowing you're all safe will make my life much easier." He kneeled on the ground and opened his arms wide. "Now let's say good-bye."
As the children stepped forward to embrace Tavis, a loud whinny sounded in the street outside. The cadence of galloping hooves echoed through the gate, then Blizzard's speckled form streaked into the courtyard. A mantle of white lather covered the mare from her muzzle down to her breast, and her eyes were mad with fatigue. She rushed to within a few paces of Tavis and reared, neighing madly.
Tavis pushed the orphans away, then grabbed Basil's shoulder and positioned the verbeeg in front of the children. He moved toward the mare slowly, his palms turned toward the horse to show her he was carrying nothing dangerous.
"Where's Brianna?" he asked in a soft voice. "Let me come close to look at your saddle."
The mare lashed out with her front hooves, then dropped to her feet and ran to the gate. She stopped there and fixed a blac
k eye on Tavis, snorting impatiently as she caught her breath.
"That horse seems quite mad," observed Basil.
"She's certainly upset," Tavis replied. He took his sword belt off his rucksack and strapped it around his waist, then picked up Bear Driller and slung a quiver of arrows over his shoulder. "Something must have happened to Brianna."
Tavis started toward the gate, but Avner caught him by the arm. "Think this through," the boy said. "Brianna's the one who's sending you away. It'd be unfortunate if something has befallen her, but do you really-"
"Avner, don't even say it," Tavis interrupted. He glared down at the youth. "How could you wish misfortune on someone who's done as much for you as Princess Brianna?"
Avner's cheeks flushed. "You're right. I'm sorry." He took a slim dagger out of his bundle. "I'll come along to help."
Tavis shook his head. "Stay here and look after the others," he said. "If Brianna didn't reach Castle Hartwick, there won't be anyone coming to look after you and the other children."
Avner scowled. "I'm no child."
"And we don't need anyone to watch after us," Livia added. "We were doing that long before you took us in."
Blizzard neighed again, then stamped her feet on the ground and trotted through the gate.
"I don't have lime to argue about this," Tavis snapped. Livia and the other children recoiled at his sharp tone, but Avner did not flinch. "Just do as I say one last time. You'll be rid of me soon enough."
The children dropped their gazes, and several of the younger ones wiped their eyes.
"Don't cry," Tavis pleaded. "There will be plenty of time for that after I find Brianna."
"Then you'll come back?" Avner asked, his spirits rising.
"At least to say good-bye."
With that, Tavis ran out the gate. When he turned toward Castle Hartwick, he saw Blizzard waiting at this edge of town. She whinnied, then set off down the road. Tavis followed at a trot, realizing the run ahead could be a long one.
Before he had gone very far, the firbolg heard a clumsy, flat-footed gait coming up from behind. He glanced over his shoulder and saw Basil lumbering up the road. The runecaster had left his sack of stolen books behind and carried only a small satchel over his shoulder. Tavis neither slowed his pace nor increased it, allowing the gaunt verbeeg to catch up in due time.
When Basil finally clumped up beside him, Tavis asked, "What are you doing here?"
"Avner… arranged… it," the verbeeg gasped. "He said I could have his books if I watched over you."
Tavis scowled, far from happy to hear the boy was using stolen goods to ensure his safety. Increasing his pace slightly, he said, "I hope you can keep up."
Somehow. Basil did. While Tavis trotted down the dusty road in near silence, the verbeeg pounded along at his side, gasping for breath and holding his ribs. Despite his obvious agony, never once did the runecaster ask the scout to slowdown. Soon, the firbolg found himself admiring his companion's will, and even began to consider that having a magic-user along might prove useful if Brianna were in serious trouble.
Pausing frequently to look back and make sure Tavis and Basil were still following, Blizzard led the pair onward for the better part of an hour. Though they crossed several streams and the mare's mouth was frothing with thirst, not once did she pause to drink. They passed dozens of granges, small farms with huts of rough hewn logs and pastures fenced by walls of stacked rock. Usually, neither the inhabitants nor their animals were visible, for the sight of a verbeeg, even one accompanied by Tavis Burdun, was enough to send most peasants info hiding.
The farms slowly gave way to long, rounded bluffs of brown granite and tangled heaths of low-growing spruce. Presently, they reached the base of Coggin's Rise, where the road entered a stand of aspen trees. Blizzard stopped and stared into the white forest with pricked ears and flaring nostrils.
Tavis heard nothing except a bevy of pine siskins whistling to each other. Although it was a normal enough sound for this time of afternoon, he nocked an arrow and advanced cautiously down the road, Basil an Blizzard following close behind. The scout came to a toppled aspen at the road's edge. The bole, snapped off about four feet above the ground, had been freshly broken, for the wood still smelled of sap and showed no signs of weathering. Next to the jagged trunk lay an area of compressed ground where a very large person, probably Morten, had fallen to the ground and rolled.
Tavis pointed the tip of his arrow at the fallen aspen. "Something dropped out of that tree and attacked Morten."
Basil cast a nervous glance at the other aspens still overhanging the trail. "What was it?"
Tavis studied the surrounding area for a moment then followed four of Morten's boot prints across the road. There, he found a mass of flies swarming over a large area of dark ground and several strange tracks that he had not seen since his days scouting for Runolf's patrol. The prints were deepest on the ball of the foot with talon marks in front of the five toes. The heel depression was hardly visible, while the arch had left no mark on the ground at all.
"It was an ogre." Tavis said.
The scout put his arrow back in its quiver, then brushed the flies away and picked up a handful of darkened ground. He sniffed the sticky clump and smelled a rancid odor.
"This is ogre blood." Tavis said. "And from the amount spilled, I'd say the brute died quickly."
The verbeeg looked up, eyeing the quivering boughs, overhead. "If he's dead, where's the body?"
"Ogres don't leave their dead behind." Tavis pointed, to a single set of deep ogre tracks leading away from the road into the heart of the woods. "One of his friends took the body. When he reaches someplace safe, he'll burn the corpse so our priests can't eat it and enslave the fallen warrior's spirit."
Basil frowned. "That's ridiculous," he said. "Human priests aren't cannibals."
"No, but ogre shamans are," Tavis replied. "And they're too stupid to understand the difference."
With Basil and Blizzard still close behind, the scout rose and followed the ogre's trail away from the road. As he walked beneath the aspens where the siskins were perched, the tone of their call changed from a gentle sweet sweet to an anxious bzzrreeee, until he and his companions had passed. A few steps later, he came across several of Morten's heavy boot prints heading in the same direction. He followed the two sets of tracks to the base of a stony bluff. He began to climb, then slopped halfway up the hill when Blizzard snorted softly and abruptly stopped.
Tavis pulled an arrow and crouched down. "Be ready." he said, turning to face Basil. "Blizzard seems-"
The scout stopped in midsentence, for the verbeeg had pulled a sheaf of fresh straw from his satchel and was dropping it on the ground. In the distance, Tavis could see two similar bundles marking the route they had taken since leaving the trail.
"What are you doing?" he demanded.
The runecaster's face went pale. "I was just m-mark-ing our p-path," he stammered. "So we don't get lost."
Tavis nocked his arrow and, without saying anything, swung it toward the verbeeg's heart.
"Avner put me up to it!" Basil blurted.
"In the name of Stronmaus!" Tavis swore, lowering his bow. "Will I ever be able to trust that boy?"
Basil sighed in relief. "His behavior is perfectly understandable," the verbeeg said. "Avner's terrified of being left alone. Now that you're abandoning him-"
"I'm not abandoning him!"
"Aren't you? As valid as your reasons are, you can't expect the boy to accept them." Basil reached down to pick up the straw he had dropped on the ground.
"Leave it," Tavis ordered. "If he's following us. I don't want him getting lost with ogres about."
The scout climbed the rest of the way up the bluff. Basil came a few steps behind, but Blizzard would advance no farther. Upon cresting the hill. Tavis found a wide band of black arrows leading across the hillside to another toppled aspen tree, like the one back at the road, it had been freshly snapped off about four feet above ground
. Next to the broken stump lay Morten's body, resting facedown in a pool of his own blood.
Tavis bit his lip, but allowed himself no other reaction to the gruesome sight. During his time with the border guard, he had grown accustomed to the sight of good men lying motionless in lonely wilderness places. Though such deaths always saddened him, he had learned to control his emotions, for outbursts of grief and anger could only get a man killed when there was danger about. Nevertheless, the scout did feel a cold knot of dread forming in his stomach, and a panicked voice in the back of his head was screaming the alarm. If Morten had fallen, Brianna could not be safe.
"Diancastra save us!" Basil gasped, stepping to Tavis's side. "They killed him!"
"So it appears," Tavis replied. After studying the area to make certain no ogres were lurking in ambush, he led the way across the hilltop. "I'll have a look around. You see to Morten."
"As you wish," Basil said. "But I don't know what I can do for him. I'm a runecaster, not a necromancer."
As Basil examined the bodyguard, Tavis made a thorough inspection of the area, retracing the course of the afternoon's events. He found seven dark, rancid-smelling stains on the mossy ground, suggesting that someone-presumably Morten-had spilled a lot of ogre blood. Near several trees, he also discovered set of deep ogre tracks. The scout realized instantly what these prints signified, for the brutes loved to attack by ambush, and dropping out of high trees was one of their favorite tricks.
To Tavis's dismay, he also found the place where Brianna had dismounted to examine Morten, another bloodstain, and the footprints of at least three ogres- one of them especially large-crossing her trail. On the bole of the toppled aspen, he noticed two gashes where Blizzard's hooves had scraped as she leaped across, and he noted the churned ground on the other side where horse and rider had fallen. Then, most disheartening of all, he discovered a gleaming white pebble that turned out to be a fractured human tooth.
Tavis was still searching for clues when Basil called out, "Morten's alive! Help me roll him over!"