by Troy Denning
“Stand aside!” she commanded. “Give these men room to work!”
The crowd’s attention remained on the lake monster, the men moving aside only when she shoved them away. She shook her head in dismay, knowing such confusion boded ill for the coming battle.
“Return to your posts!” she yelled. “This could be why the giants have been waiting!”
A few soldiers scowled and slipped off to another embrasure, but most simply ignored their queen. Brianna restrained the impulse to start hurling men over the wall and contented herself with keeping the area clear for the catapult crew. Although it had been nearly three days since the incident in the temple, her thoughts remained cloudy enough that she did not trust herself to chastise the troops. When Selwyn and Cuthbert arrived, they could restore order, and she would make it clear that she expected better discipline than this.
Blane’s catapult clacked again. Brianna stepped over to a merlon and watched the boulder splash down alongside the monster. It took several moments for the first ring of waves to ripple over the beast’s back.
“Don’t worry boys,” counseled Blane. “There’s plenty of time to sink that thing. Just pull your spoon down and load up.”
The beast let out another bugle. The tips of two white fangs broke the surface below its upraised snout. This sent another wave of hysterical speculation along the ramparts, and the confusion grew even worse as some men tried to retreat while others pressed forward to get a better look.
Selwyn and Cuthbert finally arrived, shoving through the crowd to join the queen at her merlon. They stood side by side, holding their helmets beneath their arms and craning their necks to peer through the embrasure Brianna had cleared for the catapult crew.
“Stronmaus save us!” gasped the earl. “Karontor’s sent one of his warped beasts to aid our enemies!”
“What is that thing?” asked Selwyn, his tone more curious than frightened.
“No creature of Hiatea’s, I fear,” answered Brianna. A pair of short antennae appeared behind the beast’s massive head and began fluttering. “Its too hideous to be a thing of nature.”
“How can we fight something like that? We have no wizards!” gasped Cuthbert. “What are we going to do?”
Brianna grabbed the earl’s shoulder and pulled him away from the embrasure. She wheeled him around to face her. “First, you’re going to get hold of yourself!” she snapped. “Then you’re going to restore order to this mob. If the giants attack now, this castle won’t last five minutes.”
“Quite right, Majesty,” agreed Selwyn. He turned and started down the rampart, yelling, “To your posts! Return to your stations at once!”
At first, the captain had little more luck than Brianna had. That changed when he started cuffing disobedient soldiers, even going so far as to shove one stubborn slacker off the ramparts. The queen winced, but made no move to reprove Selwyn.
Cuthbert watched the display in gape-mouthed horror. “You’re going to allow that, Milady?”
“We may not have much time before the battle begins, Earl Cuthbert,” she said. “I suggest you restore order in the best way you know how, or the men will suffer worse than that”
The earl paled, but nodded and set his helmet on his head. Brianna returned her attention to the lake. The creature was angling away from the rafts, and the queen could see that its fluttering antennae rose from a small bald spot on its neck. Since the wind was no longer to the benefit of the hill giants, they were frantically pulling down their sails and using their clubs to paddle after the monster.
Brianna heard Blane’s catapult resonate again, then saw a boulder, a little larger than the first two, arc over the lake. This time, the stone struck a glancing blow off the monster’s rear quarters. The beast whistled in pain. It plunged its head into the water and dived. A skinny tail with a bushy end and two round feet followed a fat, hairy posterior beneath the surface.
“Hiatea forgive me!” Brianna gasped. “It’s a mammoth!”
No sooner had the queen grasped this than she also realized the beast had a rider. Mammoths don’t have antennae, so the fluttering tendrils had to be waving arms.
Brianna turned to the catapult crew beside her. “Don’t aim at the monster,” she commanded. “It’s a mammoth, and it’s trying to reach us. Sink the hill giant rafts instead.”
The old man in charge of the engine looked doubtful. “That’s not what Blane’s orders-”
Brianna stretched across the catapult and grabbed the man by the collar, then dragged him over the spoon to her side. The fellow went limp in her grasp, too astonished by the queen’s unexpected strength to react
“I am your queen!” she growled. “You’ll do what I command, or suffer the punishment for treason. Is that clear?”
“Y-Yes, Majesty.”
Brianna put the man on the ground. “Good,” she said. “Aim carefully.”
The queen stepped to the next embrasure, where Selwyn’s efforts to restore order had already brought some results. The area was empty, save for two soldiers setting up a crossbow so large that it rested on a wooden tripod. She pointed at the taller of the two men.
“You, run down to Sergeant Blane and tell him to leave the lake monster alone,” she said. “He’s to sink the rafts only.”
“Yes, Majesty,” the tall soldier said. “The rafts only.”
The man started to leave, but Brianna caught his shoulder.
“And in case the sergeant has any thoughts about second-guessing me, inform him that I’ve seen a rider’s arms waving from the beast’s back,” Brianna said. She remembered how disrespectful Blane had been during their first meeting. “I’ll hold him responsible if any harm comes to that rider.”
The mammoth was still too distant to tell who was riding the beast, but the queen knew of only one person imprudent enough to dare such a thing. She intended to give him a stern lecture once she got him back into the castle.
The soldier waited a moment to see if Brianna wished to add anything else, then bowed and rushed down the rampart. The queen turned her attention to the fellow’s shorter partner.
“You, go and find a long rope to lower over the wall,” she commanded. “And tell the sentries to send word if more hill giants launch their rafts. I don’t know what’s happening out there, but we’d better be on our alert.”
“Yes, Majesty.” The soldier bowed, then ran toward the corner tower.
Brianna looked onto the lake again and saw that the mammoth had surfaced. It was now swimming parallel to the castle ramparts, reluctant to approach any closer. The queen could barely make out the figure of the tiny rider stretching forward to tug on its ear. To her astonishment, he seemed to be leaning over someone draped across the beast’s neck.
The four giants on the first raft hurled a volley of stones at the beast. The rocks all fell short, but not by much, and the mammoth dived again.
Both catapults fired. Two boulders arced away from the castle, splashing down on each side of the giants’ raft.
“We’ve got the range now,” said the commander of the catapult next to Brianna. “Crank her down.”
The queen glanced over and saw two soldiers laboriously working the tension levers to bring the spoon down. She went to the closest man and took his place.
“You help your partner.” She pointed to the other side of the catapult. “I’ll work this side.”
The two soldiers looked doubtful, but they had seen the queen reprimand their commander and knew better than to disobey. Brianna pushed her lever down as though there were no tension at all on it. The mouths of both soldiers fell open and they looked at each other in surprise.
“I am a Hartwick, you know.”
Although the queen had always been too ladylike to make a point of exhibiting her power, like all of her kingly ancestors, she was blessed with supernatural strength. She worked the lever so fast that, even together, the two soldiers could do no more than hold the skein’s tension while she ratcheted her pole back. I
t took less than a minute to lock the catapult arm in firing position.
The burly loader placed a medium-sized boulder into the spoon, and the commander peered through the embrasure. The old man told his crew to turn the catapult a little to the right, then pulled the release cord. The spoon slammed into the crossbar. Brianna heard the boulder splash into the lake, but by then she was already levering the spoon back down. Like most siege engines, catapults were poorly suited to firing at moving objects, and the queen knew it would take many attempts to hit their target.
They had to repeat the process six more times, loading slightly heavier boulders into the spoon for each shot, before Brianna heard the bang of a stone crashing through timber. Several hill giants bellowed in alarm and began to slap the water with flailing arms.
The old man looked back, beaming at the queen with a gap-toothed grin. “You’re a fine artilleryman, Majesty,” he said. “Even Blane’s crew fired only twice.”
As he spoke, a chorus of deep-throated grunts rumbled across the lake, then Brianna heard a number of boulders splash into the water near the castle wall. The hill giants were returning fire.
“How’s the mammoth doing?” Brianna asked, levering the spoon down again.
“No more than fifty paces out,” said the old man. “We sank the first raft, but there are two others close behind. It’ll be a close thing.”
As Brianna finished levering the spoon down, the short soldier she had sent for a rope returned with a large coil slung over his shoulder. The queen waited until the loader had locked the arm into place, then stepped away from the catapult.
“Keep firing,” she said. “I’m afraid I must attend to some other things.”
The queen took the rope and went to an open embrasure. The mammoth was so close now that she could see its frightened eyes peering up from the surface of the lake. As she had surmised earlier, it was young Avner sitting on the beast’s neck, one hand buried deep in the creature’s long hair and the other holding his fellow rider’s head above water. To Brianna’s astonishment, she recognized the rugged face of this second passenger as that of her firbolg bodyguard. She could not even begin to guess how the boy had come by his unconscious body, but she suspected that the scout’s return meant he had failed to summon reinforcements.
There were half a dozen hill giant rafts behind the mammoth, at distances varying between thirty and a hundred paces. Fortunately, the clumsy vessels made awkward platforms for stone hurling, and only the giants on the two nearest craft stood any chance of hitting their targets.
“Avner, rope!” Brianna called.
The queen passed several loops to one hand, then used the other to throw the rope. The coils unfurled perfectly, spinning out to fall just short of the mammoth’s trunk.
The hill giants hurled another volley of boulders at the beast. The stones splashed down in a tight circle, swamping Avner’s mount beneath a mantle of white spume. A shrill, ear-piercing screech echoed off the castle wall. When the froth spattered back into the lake, one side of the mammoth’s rear quarters had slipped beneath the water. His speed had slowed considerably.
The catapults slammed another pair of boulders into the air. Both stones, now the heaviest the engines could launch, came down on the same raft. The vessel disintegrated in a wet, crunching roar, leaving three battered hill giants in the bloodied water. The brutes slapped at the splinters of their raft, desperately trying to grab something buoyant enough to keep their heavy bodies from sinking.
The mammoth gave a joyful trumpet and continued swimming. Avner grabbed the end of Brianna’s rope and tied it around the chest of Brianna’s bodyguard. The queen was glad to see that the boy had thought to place the knot between the scout’s shoulder blades, so that he would be dragged backwards, with his head still above water, when she pulled him to the castle.
“Haul away!” the youth yelled.
“You come, too,” Brianna called. “I can bring you both up.”
“It’ll be faster one at a time.” As the youth spoke, he was dragging himself over the mammoth’s head. “Besides, I’ve got to do something.”
Brianna pulled. Even the hill giants on the farthest rafts redoubled their boulder-casting, hurling a constant storm of rocks that fell far short of the mammoth. The four warriors on the closest vessel gave up throwing in favor of paddling and rapidly began to gain on Avner’s injured mount.
Brianna continued to pull, at the same time casting anxious glances down the ramparts in both directions. Selwyn and Cuthbert had restored enough order so that soldiers armed with heavy crossbows now stood in most embrasures. The spoon on Blane’s catapult was cranked about halfway down. The engine close to her was not even that close to firing. She looked back at the lake and saw Avner treading water beside the mammoth’s head, tugging at a rope tied to the beast’s trunk.
“Damn it, Avner!” she hissed. “The next time I tell you to grab the rope, do it!”
The giants on the closest raft stopped paddling and laid their clubs aside to reach for boulders. The first warrior launched his stone just as Brianna’s bodyguard reached the base of the castle wall. The rock arced not toward Avner or the mammoth, but at the unconscious firbolg at the end of the queen’s rope. The missile splashed into the water less than two paces from its target, sending a plume of water so high that droplets hit the queen’s face.
“Fire on those giants!” Brianna yelled.
The cords of several heavy crossbows popped simultaneously, sending javelin-sized bolts sizzling down at the raft. One of the giants bellowed in pain and dropped to the deck, clutching his thigh. Two more reached for boulders, while the third grabbed two shields and positioned himself in front of his companions.
Brianna started pulling her bodyguard up the wall. She saw Avner slip the rope off the mammoth’s snout, then push on the side of the beast’s head to direct it toward the open lake.
“Avner, come on!”
The boy looked up and nodded, then swam away. The mammoth bugled its good riddance and dived.
The giants on the raft hurled their boulders. The stones hit on each side of her bodyguard and shattered against the castle wall. Brianna pulled harder, yanking the rope up so fast that it grew hot in her hands. The hill giants turned to reach for more rocks.
The bow of the raft suddenly rose, pitching both giants into the lake, then the mammoth’s head appeared beneath the logs. The beast drove one corner of the vessel high into the air and flipped it aside with an angry snort. Though the craft did not capsize, the two passengers slipped off its deck into the churning waters. The mammoth let out a blood-curdling bugle and paused long enough to gore a giant before turning toward the far end of the lake and diving out of sight.
“That’s quite a mammoth you’ve got there, Avner!” As she called to the youth, Brianna was hauling her bodyguard into the embrasure. “Do you know where we can get a dozen for the royal stables?”
“The same place I got that one!” The youth was treading water at the base of the wall. “From the frost giants-and they should be here any time!”
The youth’s comment sent a concerned murmur rustling down the wall. Brianna lowered her bodyguard onto the rampart at her feet. He was in bad shape: burned, cut, battered, and blistered from frostbite, not to mention half drowned. A pang of remorse shot through her breast, though she could not say why. She had seen many of her soldiers injured more severely than this, and while she was concerned for them, she had never felt anything like guilt because of their injuries.
As Brianna struggled to untie the wet rope around the scout’s torso, Cuthbert scurried over to her. The earl’s eye went straight to the scout’s face.
“Is that your…?” He let the question trail off, his jowls trembling. “It is! Tavis! Have all the gods deserted us?”
Brianna gave up on the knot and pulled the earl’s dagger from its sheathe. “What are you talking about, Cuthbert?”
“The hill giants are attacking!” he cried. “That’s what I came
to tell you. They just launched their entire fleet”
Brianna looked up. “That is interesting.”
A hill giant boulder crashed off the castle wall and was immediately answered by both catapults. The queen returned her attention to her bodyguard and cut the rope just above the knot. “Avner’s reported that the frost giants are coming, too.”
“Then we’re doomed,” Cuthbert uttered. “If Tavis is here, no reinforcements will be coming.”
“We don’t know that, Earl.” Brianna turned back to the embrasure. “And even if it’s true, haven’t I spoken to you about demoralizing the men?”
Cuthbert mumbled an apology, then stooped over to pull the unconscious scout away from the embrasure. Out on the lake Brianna saw that the catapults had claimed another raft. The remaining hill giants had given up the chase and were slowly paddling toward the other side of the castle, presumably to join their fellows in the main attack. Brianna dropped the rope to Avner. The youth tied a loop into the end and slipped his foot into the eyelet, then allowed himself to be hoisted up.
Brianna grabbed the youth’s wet arm and pulled him over the embrasure. “What’s all this about frost giants?” she demanded. The boy looked almost as bad as her bodyguard, with his face and hands blistered and dark from the effects of frostbite. “And where have you been?”
The youth gestured toward the castle gate, sweeping his hand across the hills beyond the bridge. “The frost giants are hiding behind those ridges. That’s why we had to swim instead of using the gate.” Avner looked down at the scout’s unconscious form, then added, “As for where I’ve been, that should be obvious. The real question is, what are you going to do about Tavis?”
Brianna regarded the battered firbolg at her feet. “What do you mean?”
“Heal him!” Avner demanded. “You are a priestess-or have you forgotten?”
Brianna’s insides turned cold and queasy. “I remember,” she said. “But I haven’t been feeling well. I–I can’t do it.”