The Giant Among Us Read online

  Basil grabbed his satchel and removed a runequill, then crawled to the door and laid his large frame down in front of the latch. The verbeeg propped an elbow on the floor and touched his quill to the lock. A glowing green mark appeared beneath the tip, and he began to trace the delicate rune that would open the door.

  * * * * *

  Brianna’s legs had gone numb from the calves down, and a cold ache had crept from the chilly floor deep into her knee joints. The queen had no idea how long she had been there, kneeling on the cool floor of Cuthbert’s temple, but it had been quite some time. She had placed a burning spear on the altar, and it had long ago burned itself out. All that remained now were warm cinders and the soot-covered head, and still she had discovered no sign of Hiatea. Her mind was too foggy to find the way to her goddess.

  But at least the mist was beginning to thin. A couple of times now, Brianna had held a thought for several moments, carefully navigating it from one hazy point to the next. Encouraged by this small progress, she intended to keep kneeling on the cold stone until she found Hiatea.

  The temple door creaked open, and a sliver of flickering torchlight crept over the altar. The queen did not rise, or even look over her shoulder.

  “Leave me alone,” she commanded. “I left orders that I am not to be disturbed.”

  “But it’s getting late,” replied Arlien’s voice. “You’ve been in here all afternoon, and most of the evening as well.”

  The prince started across the room, heels clicking and steel plate jangling. Brianna found it strange that he was still wearing his armor. Earlier in the day, she had noticed that both his wound and his breastplate now seemed completely mended. Still, she knew appearances could be deceiving. Arlien or his armor might well need another day to return to full strength.

  The prince stopped at Brianna’s side. She kept her eyes focused on the spear and tried to ignore his presence.

  “You should be sitting on the bench, Milady,” Arlien said. “Kneeling on this cold floor will do your health no good.”

  Realizing it would take more than a subtle hint to rid herself of the prince, Brianna asked, “Do you not prefer that your subjects humble themselves when they come before you?”

  “Of course,” Arlien replied. “But—”

  “Then how do you think Hiatea will receive my entreaties if I make them from the comfort of a bench?”

  “A stone slab is hardly comfortable,” Arlien countered. “And I’m sure Hiatea would understand if you made use of it After all, you’re hardly well.”

  “I’m beginning to feel better,” Brianna replied.

  Arlien was silent for a moment, then stepped between her and the altar. In his hands he held a flagon and pewter mug. “I’m glad to hear that,” he said. “And I’m sure that after you drink your restorative, you’ll feel marvelous.”

  “You may set it on the bench,” Brianna said, gesturing behind her. “I’ll have it later.”

  The prince began to pour his concoction into the mug, and a warm, fruity smell pervaded the room. Brianna tasted the spicy libation on the tip of her tongue, her mouth already watering in anticipation of the sweet nectar. A wave of fierce craving rose from deep within her body; not simple thirst, or even gluttony, but a hunger as feral as lust, every bit as powerful and insidious.

  “Not now, Arlien.” Brianna could not take her eyes off the golden draught flowing into her cup. “I’m trying to pray.”

  The prince’s eyes flashed, and he continued to pour. “It’s been too long since you drank—and there’s not a drop of wine in it, just as you asked.” The prince’s voice was as sweet as the libation flowing from his flagon, almost cloying. “And your prayers will go much better once you have restored yourself.”

  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 par
ty. 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?”