The Ogre's Pact Page 25

  Brianna’s attention was drawn back to Noote and his queen when, after a lengthy consultation with his wife, the chieftain asked, “Them firbolgs kill all ogres?”

  The sneer on Noote’s lip made it clear that he did not believe they had.

  Brianna shook her head. “No, just one,” she said. “Goboka.”

  She smirked hugely, deliberately twisting her face into an expression the hill giants would find difficult to read. In spite of her words, the princess was painfully aware that the shaman had only been driven away, not killed. She avoided lying when possible, but had learned on her father’s knee that diplomatic necessity sometimes dictated saying things that were not strictly true.

  In this case, convincing Noote and his queen that her firbolgs had actually killed Goboka served two very important goals. First, if they thought the ogre was dead, they would not be tempted to return her to him. Second, if they knew how powerful the shaman was, they might well think it wisest not to anger those who had killed him.

  Much to Brianna’s relief, her strategy seemed to be working. Noote and his queen had pressed their faces cheek to cheek and were whispering furiously into each other’s ears. So intense was their conversation that the princess could hear certain words flying back and forth, among them “spirit,” “ogre,” and her father’s name. Finally, after a particularly sharp exchange, the queen shoved her husband away.

  “Tell me, if Goboka is dead, why do you need an escort from us?” asked the queen.

  The princess’s jaw dropped. It was a rare giant who could speak so articulately, and for a hill giant to express herself so fluently was unheard of. Brianna could see that she had badly underestimated the queen. By the standards of her race, at least, the giantess was a genius. Even among the earls of Hartwick, she would have to be considered shrewd—and therefore dangerous.

  “Perhaps the reason you can’t answer my question is that Goboka isn’t dead.”

  The queen was probing, trying to convince Brianna that she knew more than she really did. It was a trick the princess had seen her father use often. “Goboka is dead,” she replied. “Unless having his head severed and his heart pulled from his chest does not kill an ogre shaman.”

  Brianna added this last part in an innocent voice, as though she were really afraid that such treatment might not have killed her enemy.

  The queen smiled at Brianna’s response. “No, I’m quite sure you killed him if you did that,” she replied. “But I’m afraid we won’t be returning you to your father.”

  A cold ball of dread formed in the princess’s stomach. “I warn you, the king will be angry if you don’t help me.”

  The queen’s smile turned into a sneer. “I think not, my dear,” she said, glancing at the raven on her shoulder. “You see, he said we could take you to the Twilight Vale ourselves.”

  * * * * *

  Avner could remember exactly when he had last been this cold—inside the Needle Peak glacier, wading up the icy stream to rescue Brianna. He had almost died.

  He felt certain he was about to die now, as the wind howled along the cliff face, spraying the stone—which was already slick—with freezing sleet, coating the hoisting chain with clear ice, and stealing the warmth from his body with each clatter of his teeth. The thief could hardly bend the frozen fingers on his good hand, but that really did not matter, since it was trembling so hard that he would not trust it to support his weight anyway.

  Avner was two links from the bottom of the hoisting chain, his body wedged through the loop and swinging in the freezing wind. He had no concept of how long he had been hanging there, for the last thing he remembered was his stomach rising toward his throat as Kol stepped off the end of the platform.

  The sky had arced out of sight in a single flash, and he had found himself staring at the distant spires of the fir forest below. Then Kol’s hand crashed into something hard and flew open. Avner felt rough iron scraping down his back and realized it was the chain. He twisted around, arms flaying madly, and nearly wrenched his arm out of its socket as he jammed his hand through a link.

  The chain crashed into the cliff. Avner felt the bones in his wrist being mashed to powder as the chain ground his arm against the cliff. His entire body went limp; had his hand not been trapped, he would have plunged after Kol into the trees below. But his pain served him well, reminding him that he was still alive and might stay that way if he reacted quickly enough. With his good hand, the boy grabbed hold of the link and pulled himself up, wedging his body through the center as it twisted away from the wall. He banged into the granite several more times, less violently than before, then his pain washed over him like a dark, cold river, and he closed his eyes.

  When he opened them again, and the chain was still swinging. The wind was howling, Avner’s teeth were chattering, and the boy did not know whether the laughter spilling from his throat was caused by joy or hysteria. But he did know that he had to get off this mountain, and fast. By morning, the only thing lodged in this link would be a hunk of frozen flesh.

  Avner wrapped an arm around the outside of the icy loop, then pulled himself up until he could work a leg through the opening and straddle the bottom. The link was just tall enough that he could sit hunched inside it. He tried to examine his injured arm by moonlight, but the shadows under the platform were too thick to see clearly. All he could tell for certain was that it was horribly swollen, and he could not bend it from the elbow down.

  “I sure hope Brianna’s still alive,” he whispered, not quite certain why he was afraid to speak out loud. If there had been any giants on the platform above, he would have heard their footsteps echoing through the timbers.

  Avner drew his dagger and cut the sleeve away from his injured arm, then used the cloth to bind his arm to his side. Next, he took his rope off his shoulder and tied a series of loops. By the time he finished, he had a makeshift ladder of about a dozen feet, easily twice as long as he needed to reach from one link to the next.

  The boy passed the rope through the link above, pushing the line through one of the loops he had tied to secure it in place. He slipped his good arm, still trembling from the cold, into another loop and began to climb. The young thief moved quickly and efficiently, for many times he had used similar techniques to climb the exterior of some tower that supposedly could not be scaled—though he had seldom found anything inside worth the trouble. Once he had even used the method to climb from Earl Dobbin’s well, after he had been forced to jump down the pit to elude a company of murderous guards.

  To his surprise, Avner felt sad about the fate of the lord mayor. He was not sorry the man was dead—the earl had certainly threatened to kill him enough times—but it seemed an era had passed. For as long as the boy could remember, he had been stealing from Dobbin Manor, and Earl Dobbin had been trying to catch him in the act. It had not been a game—the consequences of the king’s law were too deadly for that—but the contest had been eminently fair. Now, with the lord mayor separated not only from his property but from his own limbs as well, there no longer seemed any point to stealing from Dobbin Manor. It was even possible the boy would be forced to rethink his ambitions—providing he didn’t freeze to death on the side of this mountain first.

  Fortunately, that was beginning to look less likely. Avner had only one link left before he climbed into the hoisting chain slot. He could see the iron plate that blocked the entrance to the fault cave, the moonlight glinting off the crossbar’s white wood less than twenty feet above. Once he climbed through that hole and had solid timbers below his feet, he would march down the road as fast as he could. Even if it did not get him off the mountain quickly, it would at least warm him up enough to stop shivering.

  Avner reached up to pass his makeshift ladder through the last link of the hoisting chain—then abruptly stopped and pulled the rope back down. Not far above, in the shadows beneath the crossbar, a pair of hands was emerging from the iron gate. They were gaunt and leathery, with knobby joints and long black tal
ons the boy recognized as those of the ogre shaman. Even cold iron would not keep Goboka from his prize.

  15

  The Rabbit Run

  The runt had it easy, Morten thought. The giants had sewn Tavis into a cocoon of waterlogged deerskin, then tied him to a spit and hung him over the fire to roast. Morten they had stripped to his loincloth and smeared with rancid bear grease. The stuff smelled worse than a glacier skunk—worse, in fact, than a glacier skunk that had drowned in a fetid bog and floated to the surface after it decayed. Every time the bodyguard inhaled, his stomach threatened to purge itself and such a wave of nausea rolled over him that his legs nearly buckled.

  Morten kept his teeth clenched and his knees locked, trying to hide his distress. Not only was he determined to deny his tormentors the satisfaction of seeing him suffer, he knew that showing his misery would only encourage the giants to smear him with substances even more repugnant. As Tavis’s cocoon was tied to the spit, the scout had made the mistake of groaning in pain. Noote had ordered the deerskin cut away around the victim’s face, so his cries would be more clearly audible when the flames began to roast him. So far, the groan had been the only sound to escape the runt’s lips, but wisps of steam were just beginning to rise from the wet skins. The real pain would come later, when the leather began to shrink and his blood began to boil.

  Morten did not see how he could save the runt. Noote’s queen was a shrewd woman, and she clearly intended to steam Tavis as a warm-up for the morning’s climactic torture, the “rabbit run.” The hill giants would be lined up along both walls of the Fir Palace, their hands fastened behind their backs. Morten would be released at the far end of the lodge. If he could run the entire length of the chamber and out the door without being kicked to death, he would be allowed to live—or so Noote claimed. If the bodyguard tried to save the scout, he would probably be killed before he had a chance to make the rabbit run.

  In itself, that would not have bothered Morten. He had no interest in playing the queen’s game, at least not for the stakes she had proposed. But if he could convince the giantess to wager Brianna’s freedom as well, then he was determined to succeed. The run was the bodyguard’s last chance to redeem himself for letting Goboka capture the princess, and he was not about to squander it on the scout.

  After Ig had turned the spit for several minutes without drawing a single moan from Tavis, Noote grew impatient. He pulled the fomorian away from the flames and shoved him toward the log pile. “More wood!”

  The chief, his eager face looming above the cooking fire, stood across the floor from where Morten was tied. His stout wife was at his side, clutching Brianna’s rope-sheathed form in her pudgy fingers. Ribbons of early morning light were streaming down through the smoke hole, forming hazy blue halos around their knobby heads.

  Ig returned with an armful of tree trunks. He dropped the load next to the fire, then put the smallest logs on the pyre.

  “That’ll do you no good,” Morten called. He was yelling much louder than necessary, for his words were intended as much for the hide-swaddled scout as for Noote. “Tavis won’t scream.”

  “Will too,” Noote growled. “Burning hurt.”

  “Maybe, but Tavis won’t yell. He won’t give you that satisfaction,” the bodyguard maintained. “And I’m not going to make your rabbit run, either.”

  Noote scowled. “Not?”

  The logs beneath Tavis began to burn. Ig left the rest of the trees on the ground and started to turn the spit.

  “Firbolgs die with honor,” Morten explained. “We don’t beg for mercy. We don’t show pain. We just die.”

  “Maybe we skin you alive,” Noote warned. “That hurt plenty.”

  “What are you, fomorians?” Morten scoffed. “I’d have thought hill giants could do better than that.”

  Many of the giants snickered at their captive’s defiance, but the bodyguard did not care. He knew their ridicule would soon change to disappointment. Whether Tavis was thief or hero—and Morten no longer knew which—the scout was a brave firbolg. He would die silently, especially if he understood that Brianna’s life depended on it.

  “You might as well kill us now,” Morten added. “We’re not going to scream.”

  “You’ll run, Morten,” said the queen. “And Tavis Burdun will scream.”

  The giantess picked up one of the iron bars Ig used to stir the fire and placed the end in the glowing coals, then pulled the fomorian away from the spit and motioned for him to put more wood on the fire.

  Morten smiled, then locked eyes with the queen and waited. He had spent enough time in Castle Hartwick to know that the first rule of kings, at least those who wanted to stay king very long, was to keep their earls happy. The giantess was not exactly a king and her followers were not exactly earls, but the bodyguard was willing to gamble that she understood this principle as well as he did.

  Soon the steam stopped rising from Tavis’s cocoon. The stitching at the seams began to stretch, the first sign that the hides were shrinking, and the leather on the bottom side started to blacken. The scout’s face turned pink, but he clamped his jaw shut and showed no sign that he would yell.

  “You see?” Morten said. “He’s not going to scream.”

  A concerned murmur rustled through crowd of hill giants. “No fun,” one of them protested. “Scream, stupid firbolg!”

  Tavis’s lips formed a smile. “It’s not that hot,” he said, speaking through clenched teeth.

  “Roasting firbolg stupid!”

  “Yeah,” agreed another giant. He pointed at Brianna. “Maybe girl scream!”

  “No!” the queen thundered. She pulled Brianna closer to her chest. “We’re taking her to the Twilight Vale.”

  Brianna’s face, all that Morten could see of the princess, did not change expressions. She seemed far more concerned with Tavis’s plight than what the giantess might have in mind for her.

  “No fun,” grumbled a giant. “Noote stupid.”

  When the big oaf turned away and others began to follow, Morten could not help smiling. Hill giants were like spoiled human children: one could always count on them to sulk.

  The queen grabbed the poker she had placed in the fire, then thrust the handle into her husband’s hand. “Call the rabbit run.”

  Noote stepped toward Morten, waving the poker’s white-hot tip through the air. “Wait!” the chieftain yelled, addressing the backs of his departing subjects. “Time for run.”

  The giants paused, but only a few turned to face their chief. “Him not run,” said one. “Firbolg too.”

  Noote grinned wickedly, then lowered the poker’s tip and laid it against Morten’s cheek. The firbolg heard a loud sizzle, then the sick odor of burning flesh filled his nose and his entire head burned with agony. He had to bite his tongue to keep from crying out, and even then he nearly choked on the silent scream rising into his throat. The pain filled his entire head, as though the god Vulcan had swung his flaming hammer into his skull.

  When the agony had subsided enough that Morten could be sure he would not scream, he said, “I have no reason to run.”

  “Then Noote will give you a reason,” growled the queen. She was so angry that she could not quite keep her voice from making the floor tremble. “You can run, or he’ll burn your eyes out.”

  The bodyguard felt a cold sweat break out on his brow. It would be impossible to rescue Brianna if his captors blinded him. Still, he could not let them see his fear, or the princess was doomed.

  Morten shrugged. “What use does a dead man have for eyes?”

  The bodyguard looked away from the poker’s white tip, distracting himself by fixing his attention on the spit. Tavis’s blackened cocoon was now beginning to shrivel. From what Morten could see of the scout’s face, he was suffering more from the shrinking leather than the heat. His cheeks had turned that peculiar crimson of someone being choked, and the veins in his temples were bulging.

  Once again, the bodyguard found himself envious of
the scout. From all appearances, the cocoon was squeezing Tavis’s chest so tightly that the runt could not have screamed if he wanted to. But if Morten’s eyes were burned out, he would have to rely on his own willpower to keep from yelling.

  Noote kneeled beside Morten, then grabbed his head and twisted it toward the poker. “You ’fraid!” the chief insisted, moving the tip closer to the firbolg’s eye. “Say it!”

  “I’m not afraid,” Morten replied. “But I will run—if you give me reason.”

  Noote stopped short of pressing the poker into the bodyguard’s eye socket, but he continued to hold it so close Morten could feel the heat searing his eyeball. “What?”

  “The princess,” the bodyguard suggested. “Put her at the other end of the palace. If I carry her out the door, then we’re both free.”

  “Fun!” chortled a giant.

  “No!” burst the queen.

  “Then burn my eyes out,” Morten said. “I won’t run for any other reason.”

  This occasioned so much grumbling and scuffling of giant feet that Morten feared the vibrations might cause the chief to inadvertently blind him. Fortunately, Noote’s hand remained steadier than the dirt floor, and he continued to hold the glowing iron a mere finger’s breadth from the bodyguard’s eye. Sensing their chief’s indecision, the giants whispered among themselves optimistically.

  Finally, they broke into an excited chant, “Rabbit run, rabbit run!”

  The chorus made Noote’s mind up for him. He rose to his feet and tossed the poker aside, then held out his hand out to his wife. “Brianna,” he demanded.

  The queen shook her head. “Think of what it would mean if that little vermin succeeds—”

  Noote grabbed his queen by her silver necklace and pulled her toward him. “Me chief!” he growled. “Chief want girl!”

  The queen refused to yield her prize, even when the other giants gave an approving cheer and stepped forward to support Noote. Morten feared the confrontation would erupt into a full-fledged combat, which bothered him only because he remained tied to the post and would be powerless to protect Brianna. The chief leaned forward and whispered something into his wife’s ear. She listened for a moment, the scowl never leaving her face, then slapped the princess into her husband’s hand. The resulting cheer was so loud Morten felt it in his bones.