by Troy Denning
Brianna straightened her stiff legs and lurched to her feet, then took both the mug and the flagon from the prince’s hands. “I said later.” She put them on the bench and pointed toward the temple door. “Now will you leave me?”
Arlien’s lip started to curl, but he managed to keep it from twisting into a full snarl. “Unfortunately, I can’t do that,” he said. “There’s something we must discuss.”
“After I’m finished.”
“When will that be? Tomorrow, dawn? Noon, perhaps? Or when the giants drag you out of here screaming?” Arlien demanded. “By then, it’ll be too late. Duty calls now, Your Highness.”
Brianna sighed, then walked over to the window and peered into the dusk light The temple was high enough in the keep for her to see the purple mountains looming in the distance, but the castle walls mercifully shielded both the lake and the giants from her sight.
“Very well, but I hope this isn’t another argument between you and Cuthbert,” she said.
“Not a disagreement,” he replied. “Rather a precaution.”
“And what would that be?”
“Cuthbert is frightened,” the prince said. “When he sees the giants coming, he may try to strike a bargain-”
“We have discussed this before,” Brianna said, still staring out the window. “And I have taken the safeguards I consider appropriate.”
“But your own bodyguard said-”
“I am aware of what he said, but I won’t give a foreign prince command of Cuthbert’s castle,” Brianna replied. She noticed Selwyn walking along the rampart of the inner curtain, stopping to speak with his sentries and check their weapons. “But I could turn the castle’s defense over to Selwyn, and relieve you both of your responsibilities.”
“You are feeling better,” Arlien commented. He did not sound enthusiastic. “But I’m afraid that Cuthbert is only part of what I came to discuss.”
The prince came and stood behind Brianna. She did not turn around. “Go on.”
Arlien grunted his irritation. “The truth is, you should leave-tonight. I’ll take you out by the secret passage.”
Brianna braced her hands on the windowsill. “And why would I do that?”
“Because you must survive,” he said. “You owe it to Hartsvale, and this castle can’t hold-no matter who’s in command.”
“Don’t you think I know that?” Brianna whirled around. “Why do you think I’m here praying to Hiatea?”
“I don’t have the faintest idea,” Arlien replied calmly. “As I recall, she’s a deity of the giants-the goddess of nature and family, I believe. Hiatea certainly isn’t going to help us.”
Brianna felt a wave of cold nausea rising from her stomach. The queen looked past the prince to the temple’s altar, where the cinders of her offering to the goddess lay cold and ignored.
“Hiatea is my goddess, too.” Brianna spoke with more conviction than she felt. “And she also watches over firbolgs and giant-kin as well.”
“But she is the daughter of Annam,” countered Arlien. “That makes her a goddess of giants first, all others second.”
“Daughters do not always honor their father’s wishes,” Brianna said. “Hiatea watched over me when Goboka and his ogres kidnapped me.”
“But she’s not helping you now, is she?” demanded Arlien. “Now she favors the giants.”
“You know this?” Brianna demanded. “And so we are destined to loose?”
Arlien stepped closer. “Yes,” he said. “It would take a god’s intervention to save us now. Even if your bodyguard got through-”
“He did. Ta-Tav-” Brianna could almost bring the name to mind. “Tav-”
Arlien raised one brow. “Tavis?”
“Yes, that’s right,” the queen answered, and the name vanished as quickly as she heard it. “My bodyguard is the finest scout in Hartsvale-in all the Ice Spires. If anyone can get through, he will.”
“My point exactly,” replied Arlien. “We don’t know if anyone can get through. And even if he does, he won’t return in time. The giants will attack when the wind shifts tomorrow.”
“ If the wind shifts tomorrow.”
“Stop fooling yourself!” the prince snapped. “Hiatea has been watching over you on behalf of the giants. Why else do you think she favored such a young girl?”
The queen narrowed her eyes. “How do you know when the goddess came to me?”
Hiatea had granted her favor to the princess of Hartsvale at the age of five-but only Brianna, her father, and Castle Hartwick’s high priest knew that.
Arlien seemed lost, then he looked at the floor and admitted, “My spy told me.”
“The High Priest!” Brianna gasped, more shocked than angered. “Simon was like an uncle to me!”
Arlien grimaced. “You mustn’t go too hard on him,” he said. “He was doing only what was best for both countries.”
“I’m certain that’s what you told him, but I’m not so foolish,” she said sharply. “And now you may leave.”
The prince furrowed his dark brow. “Surely you don’t intend to stay,” he said. “You must see-”
“What I see is a coward.” She glared down at Arlien.
The prince’s jaw pumped up and down in stunned silence, then finally caught hold of his thoughts. “I’ll forgive that unfortunate choice of words. You didn’t realize what you were saying. You’re still weak and confused from your illness.” Arlien went over to the bench and picked up the mug, then returned and handed it to Brianna. “Drink your restorative. I’m sure you’ll come to your senses.”
“I’m feeling fine-much better, in fact, than I have in days,” Brianna replied. She clamped her jaw down against the temptation to drink, then turned and dumped the libation out the window. “And I have no intention of marrying a coward, or of allying Hartsvale with a country that sends one to court me. So, dear prince, it seems you’re under no obligation to stay and fight. Feel free to leave any time you wish.”
Arlien’s face grew as dark as a thunderhead. “You may have misunderstood me, Queen Brianna,” he hissed. “When the fighting starts, no one will be closer to your side than me.”
“Good,” Brianna replied. “I’ll see you on the morrow.”
Arlien gave her a curt bow, then went to the door and paused there. “I suggest you don’t waste all of your newfound vigor praying to Hiatea,” he said. “You’ll soon have need of your strength. Tomorrow may come sooner than you think.”
10
Cold Camp
A long, uncanny trumpeting trilled over the glacier, at once as shrill as a wyvern’s cry and as full as a dragon’s roar. Tavis stopped walking and ran his eyes over the milky miles of snow ahead. He saw the dark crags of a few scattered peaks poking through the ice, but otherwise the terrain looked exactly as it was: a vast, barren sheet of snow and ice thick enough to bury entire mountains.
“I didn’t call for no rest,” growled Slagfid. He shoved Tavis after Bodvar, who was breaking trail through six feet of fresh snow. “Keep going.”
Tavis limped forward again, as anxious as Slagfid to maintain a steady pace. The scout judged the magic would fade from his runemask no later than dawn, returning him to firbolg form. Before then, he had to reach the frost giant camp, learn where Hagamil was meeting Julien and Arno, and slip safely away. To complicate matters, he had no idea how much farther he had to travel. Glaciers like this one could swallow entire mountain ranges, spanning distances so huge that even giants could not cross them easily. The war party might not reach camp until after Hagamil had fallen asleep for the night, and Slagfid would hardly be anxious to awaken his chief and report a botched mission.
Despite his mangled toe, Tavis soon caught up to Bodvar and had to slow his pace. Although the snow was barely knee deep, it was heavy and wet, and Bodvar had been breaking trail for most of the journey. The warrior’s breath came in wheezes and gasps, and his legs were so weak that he had to catch his balance with each step.
The scout
looked back at Slagfid. “Bodvar can barely walk,” he said. “The rest of our journey will go faster if someone else breaks trail.”
“Bodvar wouldn’t be breaking trail if he’d held onto that traell, like I told him,” Slagfid growled. “But you’ve got me in trouble, too. You can break trail if you want.”
Tavis made no move to accept the frost giant’s offer. “You’ve seen my toe. I’d spend more time floundering than breaking trail.” He did not add that the effort of impersonating a stone giant had left him nearly as exhausted as Bodvar. The muscles in the scout’s legs were quivering like aspen leaves, and his breathing was so heavy he could hardly see through the curtain of white vapor rising from his mouth. “Call Egarl up. He should have come back to look for us.”
“That’s for me to decide.” Slagfid eyed Tavis suspiciously. “I don’t see why you’re in such a hurry, Sharpnose. After losing that bow, Hagamil’s going to be no happier to see you than Bodvar.”
“I’m not frightened of Hagamil,” Tavis replied.
“Then you’re a fool,” Slagfid snorted.
Seeing that the frost giant would not be swayed, the scout limped after Bodvar. Slagfid was right about one thing: Tavis was a fool. Since learning where ice diamonds really came from, the scout had told himself the same thing at least a hundred times. He wanted to gouge out his eyes for not seeing that Arlien was a fake, and to tear off his own ears for failing to hear the ring of falsehood in the man’s silky voice. What a chuckle the prince must have had when Tavis warned him to be wary of Cuthbert!
Arlien would probably be with Julien and Arno when they delivered Brianna to the frost giants. If so, the scout would make the prince pay for his treachery.
As he contemplated his vengeance, Tavis’s stomach began to burn. He would have no weapons when he returned to firbolg form. His broken sword still lay back at Shepherd’s Nightmare, and Avner had his bow and quiver.
Fortunately, unless the youth had undergone an unexpected change of character, Avner wasn’t likely to return to Cuthbert Castle as instructed. He was far more likely to follow the scout onto the glacier. Assuming he didn’t freeze to death or fall into a hidden crevasse, Tavis would actually be grateful for the boy’s disobedience.
Another eerie trumpet rolled over the ice, reminding Tavis of the most significant danger to Avner. Plenty of creatures made their homes on glaciers, many of them predators. If one of the beasts happened to catch the youth’s scent… the scout saw no use in picturing what would happen.
Ahead of Tavis, Bodvar suddenly pulled up short. “Praise Thrym!” he puffed. “A rider.”
The frost giant was looking toward a nearby nunatak, one of the craggy stone peaks that occasionally jutted up through the surface of the glacier. A deep trench encircled the pinnacle, for during the day the spire’s dark rock gathered enough heat from the sun to melt the ice around it. Like the mountainous nunatak itself, the hollow was huge, easily the size of a small canyon, and lumbering out of that icy gorge was the hulking, shaggy form of a woolly mammoth.
The creature seemed remarkably small, perhaps because of the young frost giant riding him. The youth’s legs easily straddled the beast’s huge back, his feet dangling almost to the ground. The scene reminded Tavis of a human child riding the family sheepdog.
“Hey, you!” Bodvar waved at the distant youth. “Come break trail for us!”
Slagfid offered no objection to the request, perhaps because he sensed Bodvar could not continue much longer.
The young rider stopped and peered toward the war party. His mount dug its saber-curved tusks into the ice and gouged a large cake from the glacier.
“Who’s that?” the youth called.
“It’s Bodvar, with Slagfid and his war party.”
The boy’s mount wrapped its pendulous trunk around the ice it had gouged free, then flung the block at something behind it that Tavis could not see. A bloodthirsty howl echoed off the snow. The mammoth lurched forward, raising its hairy trunk to voice an angry bugle. The two calls combined to create the eerie trumpeting Tavis had heard before.
Unconcerned by the strange noise, the young giant grabbed his mount’s ear and yanked it around, guiding the beast down the glacier to meet the war party. The scout noticed a pair of poles running from the creature’s saddle toward the ground behind it, where the rods were lashed to the sides of a narrow, chitinous head with bulbous black eyes and a muzzle full of sharp fangs.
Tavis saw a pair of spiny head-wings flare out from the sides of the ghastly face, and he suddenly understood the mammoth’s nervous behavior. The beast behind it was a remorhaz, one of the most vicious and brutal of all glacial predators. The monster’s body resembled that of a twenty-foot centipede, with blue segmented sections and two dozen sticklike legs ending in razor-sharp claws. The thing was scuttling along behind the mammoth, hissing madly and flailing at the mammoth’s tail with its face tentacles. Only the poles lashed to its head prevented the ravenous creature from hamstringing the mammoth and devouring it on the spot.
Slagfid pushed by Tavis and took Bodvar’s place at the head of the line. When the youth arrived, he reached down to scratch the mammoth’s woolly ear. “My thanks, Frith.”
“Your thanks are nice,” said Frith. The boy was young enough that he still had a slender face, with the yellow fuzz of his first beard sprouting on his chin. “A new axe would be better.”
Slagfid nodded. “I’ll see that Bodvar gives you one.” He peered over the mammoth’s rump at the hissing remorhaz. “I see you’ve got yourself a nice little ice worm.”
Frith nodded proudly and motioned at the nunatak behind him. “I’ve been keeping him down there.” The youth peered down the war party’s line. “You got that Tavis Burdun-alive, I mean? We could throw him to the worm and have us some fun.”
“No, Gavorial killed Tavis Burdun,” Slagfid reported.
“Too bad,” said Frith. “We’ve got an ogre back at camp, but you know how fast he’ll go. Hagamil could use the fun tonight.”
Slagfid winced. “He’s in a bad mood, is he?”
Frith nodded. “And it’ll be worse if I don’t get back there.” The boy yanked on his mammoth’s ear, turning the beast up the glacier. “Don’t get too close to my worm. He’s hungry.”
Slagfid stepped back, allowing the remorhaz to slink into the trail behind the mammoth. With only seven body segments, the creature was not particularly large, but it was definitely hungry. The white stripe down its back had turned bright pink from the heat of its appetite.
Once the ice worm had scuttled past, Slagfid reluctantly started up the trail. With the remorhaz hissing and growling at its tail, the mammoth moved at a brisk pace, plowing through the heavy snow as though it weighed as much as a cloud. Within half an hour, the frost giants were all huffing from the exertion of staying close to the beast. Bodvar and Tavis could not keep pace, even with Slagfid threatening to unleash the remorhaz on them. They soon found themselves being dragged along by a pair of bitterly complaining helpers.
After an excruciating length of time, they came to an uneven ring of nunataks formed by the rim of an ancient volcano. Frith slowed his mammoth and commanded, “Call.”
The beast raised its trunk and let out a long, wavering trumpet The sound was answered by a tremendous chorus of similar calls from inside the ring. A frost giant sentry appeared on the summit of a nunatak and waved the war party on.
Frith led the way across a narrow isthmus of snow between two nunatak hollows, then the group emerged in the volcano’s snow-filled caldera. The frost giants had made camp in the heart of the crater, around a flat area that could only be a frozen lake.
The encampment was one of the coldest and loneliest places the scout had ever visited. The frost giants sat in the frigid moonlight in groups of two or three, conversing in quiet tones or not speaking at all. Most of the children were already asleep, lying in beds of fresh snow or, at most, a small shelter dug into a steep slope. The mammoths were gathered at one
end of the lake, near a deep pit they had gouged through the ice. There was no fire or light anywhere.
As Frith guided his mammoth down the slope, several of the giants below pointed toward Slagfid’s war party. A gentle murmur started to build. Drowsy children roused themselves from their beds, wiping the sleep from their eyes with handfuls of snow. The entire tribe drifted toward the far end of the caldera, where the mouth of a huge cavern yawned in an ice cliff.
Slagfid’s face grew increasingly stormy as the procession crept toward the cavern. Finally, when Frith reached the bottom of the slope, Slagfid clasped a burly hand around Tavis’s arm.
“All those giants expect to see Tavis Burdun’s body, Sharpnose. They’re not going to be happy about taking your word for what happened,” the frost giant growled. “So you’d better tell your story well, or Hagamil’s liable to feed us both to Frith’s worm.”
“I’m sure you have a much better idea of what they want to hear,” Tavis said, realizing it would be impossible for him to tell a convincing tale. “Why don’t you recount events for me?”
Slagfid’s lip twisted into a disdainful sneer. “I imagine you’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
The frost giant thrust Tavis’s hand away, then turned and stomped off toward the cavern. The scout stood where he was, too preoccupied to follow.
Bodvar clamped a reassuring hand on Tavis’s shoulder. “Don’t worry. It won’t be as tough as he makes out,” said the giant. “You’re a stone giant. Nobody’ll notice if you lie a little-especially about how we lost the traell and the bow.”
Bodvar started forward, pulling Tavis along. By the time they reached the ice cave, a sharp blue light was glowing from the interior. Frith dismounted and set to work loosing the remorhaz poles from his saddle. Slagfid motioned for Tavis and Bodvar to come inside, then ducked through the entrance.