by Troy Denning
Tavis's sight began to grow murky and black, as though he were climbing into a cave for a deep winter sleep. The scout fought to stay alert, turning all his thoughts toward the dwindling light at the lair's distant mouth, but the gloom continued to close in, until he could see nothing but Goboka's hideous face leering at him from the other end of a narrow, dark tunnel.
Tavis reached up and pressed his thumbs to Goboka's eyes, trying to gouge the purple orbs from their sockets before the warrens of his mind grew completely dark.
The shaman threw his head back, pulling his eyes safely out of reach-then Avner's small frame appeared in the gloomy shadows at the edge of Tavis's vision. The youth's hand was arcing through the air, driving the gleaming blade of a steel dagger down past Goboka's face. The knife struck with a deep thud. A spray of blood shot up past the shaman's cheek, and the ogre finally pulled his hands from Tavis's throat.
As the blood rushed back into Tavis's head, the murk began to lighten. The scout glimpsed Goboka's clublike arm swinging toward Avner's small form. The blow landed with a terrible crack and sent the youth sailing through the air. The boy yelled once, then fell quiet.
The shaman stood and turned to follow. As soon as the tremendous weight disappeared from Tavis's chest, the scout pushed himself up and reached out to clutch Goboka's ankle. The ogre did not even spin around. He simply swung the heel of his huge foot and caught Tavis beneath the chin. The scout went reeling down into the dreamless mists where bears sleep.
*****
Brianna snatched up the small wooden javelin Basil had prepared for her and stood, more than a little frightened by what she saw on shore. The shaman's kick had left Tavis lying motionless, either unconscious or dead, while the ogre's snake had just captured Basil's second arm in its coils. Goboka himself was striding toward Avner's groaning form, apparently determined to make certain the youth did not survive to attack him again. Despite the steel dagger and two arrows that had been lodged in his bloody torso, the shaman showed no signs of discomfort-much less of debilitating injury-as he moved to finish the boy.
"Hiatea, give me your blessing," Brianna whispered. "The battle has fallen upon my shoulders now."
The princess spoke the command word Basil had taught her, then hurled the javelin in her hand at Goboka's back. With a great whoosh, the spear burst into flame and streaked away, long tongues of yellow fire trailing after it. The shaman cocked an ear toward the hissing shaft, then, without even glancing toward the sound, hurled himself to the ground.
The maneuver did not spare him. The shaft curved down and planted itself between his shoulder blades. Goboka's scream echoed through the woods. The javelin burst apart, leaving a geyser of flame to shoot from the hole in the ogre's back.
At last, something had injured the shaman. For several moments, he lay on the ground with a pillar of greasy black smoke rising from his wound, growling with pain and digging his long talons into the dirt. Brianna thought he might be dying, but that hope vanished when he raised his head and looked back toward her. His purple eyes had gone black with rage, while his lips were covered with gashes from his own gnashing tusks.
Goboka pushed himself to his feet. After glancing around to make certain his other foes would not be attacking again, he fixed his eyes on Brianna and staggered toward her.
"Princess like hurt? Goboka too. Got plenty." The ogre stopped at the edge of the bog and scowled at the syrupy mud. "Hurt you good before we go."
Brianna stared across the bog, not trying to hide her fear. "You're not going to hurt me," she said. "I won't allow it."
The princess turned and took quick steps, then leaped away from the edge of the raft. She splashed, with a syrupy gurgle, into the mud and plunged in as far as her chest, then began to sink more slowly.
Goboka's angry eyes paled to lavender, and his heavy jaw fell open. "Stop!" he ordered. "What you do?"
"I swore I'd die before I let you take me again," Brianna said. Her feet touched the boulder she and her companions had placed on the bottom when they moved the raft into position, and she slowly bent her knees so that it would appear she was continuing to sink. "And I meant it."
The princess held her chin above the mire long enough to see the shaman grab a log and come splashing toward her, then she closed her eyes and let her head sink into cold mud. Pinching her nostrils shut with one hand, Brianna kneeled down and ran her hand over the boulder until she found the line they had tied to it, then she followed the rope until she came to the hand axe.
The princess pulled the weapon loose. Her heart began to pound, rebelling against any plan that required her to stop breathing, and within thirty alarmed beats the rest of her body joined the panic. Soon, it seemed to Brianna that she had been submerged forever, though a small corner of her mind knew that no more than a minute had passed. Her lungs began to ache for air, and her mouth longed to open wide. It required a conscious act of will to keep her legs folded beneath her, for every instinct screamed at her to straighten them out and thrust her head up into the cool, crisp air just two feet above. But the princess knew what would happen if she did: Goboka would realize he had been tricked. He would react instantly, dodging or blocking her axe strike, and her chance would be gone.
The princess could not understand what was taking Goboka so long. He was obviously intelligent, at least for an ogre, and this was a simple enough thing to do. Push his log out to her raft and plunge his hand into the mud, then grasp her hair-or whatever he could find-and pull her up.
Perhaps he was casting a spell. They had talked about that possibility, but Basil had convinced them that once Brianna was submerged, the ogre would not have time to prepare a spell capable of saving her. Unfortunately, Goboka had surprised them too many times for the princess to place much faith in the runecaster's reassurances. That she was now crouching in the bog was proof enough of the shaman's prowess, for this was the last hope of victory. All of their other plans and assaults had failed to stop him.
There was nothing for Brianna to do but wait, fighting against her own instincts while her body slowly burned her last whiffs of air. Her temples began to throb, and her chest was about to burst with the urge to expel the stale breath in her lungs. In the back of her mind, a fiendish voice kept saying she would feel better if she exhaled. The princess did not listen. She knew her desperate lungs would try to refill themselves the instant she emptied them, and she still had enough control over her mind to know humans could not breathe mud.
At last, Brianna felt the mire swirling near her face. She pushed her head toward the activity and felt her brow brush a pair of talons. They twitched away, and she lost contact. The princess almost screamed, then felt the coarse pads of five ogre fingers slipping over the crown of her head. They squeezed down, the claws digging into her scalp so deep she feared they would puncture her skull.
Brianna took her fingers away from her nostrils and reached up to claw at the hand, trying to pull Goboka into the mud on top of her. She did not want to succeed, but if she allowed the shaman to pull her from the bog without a struggle, he might sense a trap.
Goboka's talons dug deeper, and he pulled. Brianna was surprised by the force the bog exerted to keep her down. The suction was more powerful than the princess had imagined possible, and she found herself worrying the ogre would not be strong enough to pull her free. She had heard many stories of moose, bears, and even dragons that had become so caught in quagmires that they starved to death within plain sight of solid ground. If such powerful beasts could not free themselves, it seemed unreasonable to think an ogre could pull her out.
Fortunately, Brianna did not have to rely on her foe. Ever so slightly, she began to straighten her legs and push against the solid surface of the boulder. She felt herself slipping slowly upward, until, with a loud whooshing sound, the suction broke and her head came shooting out of the mud.
Brianna found herself looking at the side of Goboka's log, with what appeared to be a bleeding mass of mud piled on top. At firs
t, the princess did not know what to make of the sight, then she understood exactly what she was seeing and braced her feet solidly on the boulder. She pushed herself to her full height, so that she was standing only chest-deep in the mire, and brought the hand axe up from beneath the muck.
Goboka tried to slide off the other side of the log, but Brianna was already swinging the weapon at his throat. The blade came down with a damp, distinct thump, then she felt the satisfying crackle of a skull popping free of its neck.
The head splashed into the bog, but the rest of the shaman's bulky corpse remained on the log. Brianna shoved the loathsome body out of sight and pulled herself from the bog, already turning toward the shore where her friends lay in desperate need of healing magic.
It did not occur to the princess to give a victory cry, not until she reached the shore of the bog and saw Tavis lift his battered head. * 18* Audience with the King
As the flabbergasted doormen performed the ceremonial presentation of their poleaxes, Brianna pulled Basil's runestone from beneath her grimy bearskin cape and turned its glowing symbol toward them. The eyelids of both men drooped shut, the tension drained from their bodies, and their weapons slipped from their hands. They fell to floor, landing atop each other in a crumpled heap.
The princess spun around, presenting the runestone to the six astonished sentries flanking Tavis. These guards also sank into slumber, collapsing to the floor amidst a clamor of weapons and armor.
"Can I look yet?" Tavis was holding his hands to his eyes, Avner and Basil were waiting, at Brianna's order, in the woods outside Castle Hartwick.
"Yes." Brianna turned the runestone toward the floor, then waited for the scout to uncover his eyes and handed it to him. "You keep this, in case any more of Father's guards show up."
Tavis slipped the runestone beneath his cloak, then retrieved Bear Driller from the guard who had been holding it. "I'll slip inside once you've drawn their attention away from the door," he said. "Don't worry if you don't notice. I'll be there when you need me."
Brianna smiled and touched his cheek, which was still badly swollen in spite of all the healing spells she had cast on it. "You always have," she said. "Wish me luck."
The princess turned and kicked the door, thrusting her heel into the bas-relief face of a leering satyr. The portal swung open with a resounding boom, then Brianna stepped through a looming arch into Castle Hartwick's banquet room.
The cavernous chamber was every bit as gloomy as the interior of the Fir Palace, for the wall sconces had all been hung with red mourning curtains that turned the flickering torchlight to the color of blood. A long feasting table ran down the center of the room. Standing along its sides, staring in her direction with their swords drawn and mead dripping from their beards, were the surviving earls of Hartsvale. Most had white bandages covering the wounds they had suffered during the ogre ambush, and a few still seemed to have trouble standing.
"Put your weapons away and sit down, gentlemen," Brianna commanded. "I intend you no harm."
The princess looked toward the far end of the table where the king, his eyes bleary and his beard slick with the grease of roast fowl, sat. In the first chair on the right sat his young queen, Celia of Dunsany, barely older than Brianna, while High Priest Simon sat in the first chair on the left. Two members of the Giant Guard, the stone giant Gavorial and the frost giant Hrodmar, stood in the shadows behind him, hardly distinguishable from the great pillars supporting the ceiling.
As Brianna swept into the room, the king squinted at her as if he did not know who she could possibly be. The earls remained frozen in silence, too shocked even to whisper to each other. Only the giants seemed to accept that the princess had returned, with Hrodmar glancing nervously at Gavorial for guidance. The stone giant, patient and stolid as ever, raised a single long finger to instruct his companion to remain motionless.
Finally, Camden demanded, "Who dares burst into my hall?"
"Brianna of Hartwick, of course," the princess replied.
Brianna stepped over to the banquet table, where she would be illuminated by the candles, and paused. After her long ordeal in the mountains, she had a haggard, wind-chapped face and snarled, stringy hair, but the princess had not changed so much that even her drunken father could fail to recognize her.
"What apparition are you?" demanded the king. "My daughter was abducted by ogres!"
"Then what are you doing here?" demanded Brianna. Though she had just entered the room, she could see that strong drink had reduced the king to a pitiful, confused shadow of the father she remembered. "Why are you feasting in your hall when you should be in the mountains, tracking ogres and fighting to save me?"
This was too much for the stuporous king. "She's a ghost!" he blurted. "Away with her!"
Hrodmar started to step around the table, but Gavorial raised his hand and gently held the frost giant back. Brianna found the favor puzzling, for the Giant Guard prided itself on obedience to the king's every word. But then, it had always seemed to her that the stone giant was constantly and silently measuring the actions of those around him. Perhaps Gavorial had ignored the command because he already knew what the princess hoped to prove to the earls: that her father was no longer worthy of obedience.
When no one moved to obey, the king leaped out of his chair. "She's a ghoul, I tell you!" he yelled. "Don't let her near!"
"I'm no fiend," Brianna replied. She touched her fingers to the cheek of a nearby earl, one of the few whom she knew to be an honest and trustworthy man. "I'm quite alive, as I'm certain Earl Wendel will tell you."
The earl nodded. "Her flesh is as soft and warm as that of my own wife."
"What are you saying?" the king demanded. "Whose side are you on?"
"My king's, of course," the earl replied. He met the king's glare evenly. "I'll claim that Brianna's a fiend, if you desire-but I don't know why you'd want that. If she were my daughter. I'd be overjoyed to see her return safely."
For a moment, Camden stared at Earl Wendel as though he didn't comprehend what the man had said. Then the king seemed to realize he was making a fool of himself and sank back into his chair. He pulled off his golden crown and placed it next to his mug, then ran his hands through his tangled hair.
"Yes, forgive me. It's just that I'm… I've been so distraught." The king raised his gaze to Brianna, and she saw that there were tears welling in his eyes. "I am happy to see you alive. It's just that… I'm so sorry… but I didn't expect I ever would."
"I imagine you didn't," Brianna replied, sickened by the pathetic figure at the head of the table. "Considering your bargain with Goboka, I'm quite sure you counted me lost forever."
The king's lips began to tremble. His eyes darted around the banquet table, studying the mood of his earls. When he saw nothing but blank faces, he motioned Brianna forward.
"You must be hungry, my dear." Camden cast a meaningful glance toward High Priest Simon. As the cleric rose to offer his chair, the king continued, "Come and sit beside your father. Eat and drink."
The king had not lost his capacities entirely, Brianna realized. He was attempting to retain control of the situation by changing the subject, and by subtly exerting his authority over her. Also, closing the distance between them would transform the discussion from a public matter to a private one. The princess knew her cause would be lost if she allowed him to accomplish either goal.
"Sit down, Simon." As she gave the command, Brianna glared into her father's eyes, making clear that she was challenging his authority. "I have no intention of accepting hospitality from a man who would trade his daughter-his only heir-for a kingdom."
Camden's eyes flashed with anger. He pushed his chair back and drew himself to his full height, slamming his fist onto the tabletop. Earthenware mugs and platters bounced so high into the air that they shattered when they came down, spilling mead and greasy meat.
"I did not trade you for my throne!" he thundered.
Celia's face went as pale as bone,
but the young queen seemed afraid to rise without permission. Brianna wondered if the king had become that much of a tyrant. By the deathly silence in the room, she suspected he had. Even the earls sat petrified in their chairs, their eyes fixed on Camden's shuddering figure as though he were about to explode.
"You dare deny it?" Brianna inquired. Despite her growing anger, she deliberately kept her voice as calm as possible. The contrast between her composure and the king's demented fury would only serve to convince the earls she was telling the truth. "Then why were the horses of all your companies still in their stables? What forces have you sent to rescue me from the ogres?"
This drew a quiet drone of whispering from the earls, and Brianna knew they had probably been wondering the same thing.
"I don't deny that I have made great personal sacrifices for the benefit of Hartsvale." The king's voice was suddenly as calm as Brianna's, his face so serene and collected that it was difficult to believe he had been a blustering drunkard only a moment before. He braced himself on the table and leaned forward, speaking to his earls now instead of Brianna. "Goboka has been a good friend. Not only did he help us resolve our difficulties during the War of Harts, he has kept ogres from marauding in our valley for these nineteen years."
"And the price for his help was your daughter?" asked Earl Wendel, incredulous.
The king narrowed his eyes at the earl and gave him a menacing glare. Then he answered, "Yes."
The king's mouth hung open for a moment, as though he intended to add more to his explanation, then he shifted his gaze to Brianna's face. The tears that had welled in his eyes earlier began to spill down his cheeks openly, and he made no attempt to conceal them.
"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.