The Titan of Twilight ttg-3 Read online

  A silver aura flashed around Hiatea’s spear talisman, and the flames stopped dancing. A shimmering, pearly light passed from the amulet into the mica, which vanished in a puff of sparkling white smoke. Brianna felt a scorching heat against her belly. The pain spread deeper and outward, until her whole stomach burned as though someone had spilled boiling water on it. Her skin began to glow with a brilliant sheen. The queen felt her baby kicking and clawing inside her womb, as though it, too, could feel Hiatea’s searing magic.

  Though it was not apparent to her, Brianna knew that her flesh was growing silvery and pellucid. She often used this spell on desperately ill or injured people to look inside and see what was wrong. In Hiatea’s wisdom, however, patients could not look inside their own bodies-as much, the queen suspected, to preserve life’s mystery as to prevent sufferers from seeing their own grotesque injuries and growths. Brianna wished that just this once, the spell would work differently. More than anything, she wanted to see the child in her womb, to confirm for herself what Simon had told her: that Galgadayle’s dream was quite mistaken.

  Avner’s eyes, growing wider and more uneasy as the glow brightened, remained fixed on her belly. Finally, when the queen’s shining stomach illuminated the tunnel with a flickering gray light, the young scout’s jaw dropped, and Blizzard nickered in astonishment. The mare lowered her nose to the queen’s abdomen and sniffed the skin; her ears pricked forward and her black eyes grew huge with astonishment.

  Avner pushed the mare’s head aside and, amazingly enough, did not get bitten. “I can see the baby!”

  Along with several layers of muscle, membrane, and intestinal walls, the queen’s skin had become as transparent and brittle-looking as the mica she had laid on it earlier. Through the silvery window, Avner could see into the queen’s womb, where a bluish infant lay squeezed into a pocket of pink, fibrous flesh. The baby was reclining with its legs tucked in front of its belly and its head pointed down toward the birth canal. Its face was turned away, showing a mane of surprisingly thick and black hair on the back of its head. A pulsing blue cord ran over its flank to a sack of turbid liquids at the top of the womb.

  Although its eyes were certainly still closed, the infant was craning its neck back, as though trying to peer through its mother’s pelvis into the outside world. Both hands were stretched down toward the birth canal and gently clawing at the walls of the soft prison, but Avner could see the child would never escape. The baby’s skull was as big around as a catapult stone, much too wide to fit through the cramped opening of the queen’s pelvic cavity.

  “Avner, what’s wrong?” Brianna asked, her voice edged with pain. “Simon was right, wasn’t he? It’s not twins?”

  The young scout took a deep breath. He looked up, trying to keep his face relaxed so Brianna would not see how frightened he was. “No. There’s only one.”

  The queen sighed in relief, then gave him a condescending, if weak, smile. “Do you believe me now?” she asked. “Firbolgs may not lie, but they’re not always right, either.”

  Avner did not know how to reply. Although Galgadayle had clearly been wrong about the twins, the infant’s full head of silky black hair was distressing. Tavis’s hair was full, and Brianna’s was silky-but only the ettin’s had been black.

  A front rider approached from the tunnel mouth. The man, Thatcher Warton, knelt at Avner’s side, being careful not to look toward his naked queen. “The firbolgs are moving toward the trails that lead up here,” he murmured. “If you don’t hurry, they’ll trap us here.”

  His whisper was not quiet enough to escape the queen’s ears. “Hurry? How should I hurry?”

  The front rider flushed and did not answer.

  “Perhaps Blizzard could sit on my stomach?” Brianna growled. “That would squeeze the child out in short order, would it not?”

  Thatcher only looked at the ground. His face showed no sign of ire or indignation, and Avner suspected Gryffitt had warned him that the queen might seem unreasonably cross.

  Brianna glared at the front rider for a moment, then closed her eyes and hissed between clenched teeth. Avner looked down and saw the infant’s small fist pushing deep into the wall of her womb. The pain seemed to help the queen focus. She let out two deep breaths, then fixed her gaze on Avner.

  “Maybe it doesn’t matter if they catch us,” Brianna said. “Firbolgs are a scrupulous people. Once they see that I’m carrying only one child, they’ll realize Galgadayle was wrong. They’ll never hurt-”

  “It’s better not to take that chance, Majesty.” Avner glanced at the infant’s black hair. “They lost more than a dozen warriors against the fire giants. They won’t be in a reasonable mood.”

  “What does their mood matter?” As Brianna spoke, the fibrous flesh of her womb rippled, then folded around the baby like a glove. “They’re looking for the ettin’s child. Once they see that I don’t have him, they’ll release Gerda.”

  The queen’s voice sounded more desperate than certain, and Avner realized she was dangerously close to pinning her hopes of salvation on the very enemies who had driven her into this hole.

  Brianna groaned, then braced her hands against the floor to push herself into a sitting position. “I need my midwife, Avner.”

  “You can’t put your faith in the firbolgs,” he said. “Even if you show them what’s in your womb, they might kill it.”

  Brianna scowled. “I don’t… understand,” she gasped. “What are you saying?”

  Avner did not want to tell the queen about her child’s hair. She was already having a difficult time with labor, and any suggestion that the child wasn’t Tavis’s might dishearten her to the point of giving up.

  “Firbolgs don’t trust anyone who can lie.” Avner was thinking fast. “They’ll think you’re trying to trick them.”

  Brianna’s face fell. Her eyes rolled back in her head, and she let out a short cry. Avner glanced down at her belly and saw the infant’s head pressed hard against her pelvic bone. Her womb walls quivered with the effort of trying to force him through the pelvic cavity.

  “I’m… too… weak.” Brianna clutched Avner’s arm, and seemed to be trying to pull herself into a kneeling position. “I can’t do this… not alone.”

  “Majesty, you’re not alone.” Avner slipped his hand under her arm, then looked up. Thatcher was still staring at the wall. “Thatcher, help me with the queen. I think she wants to kneel.”

  “Of course, with Her Majesty’s permission.” The front rider reluctantly turned to obey. “Please pardon my cold-in the name of Stronmaus!”

  The man’s eyes had fallen on Brianna’s transparent womb and remained locked there. His jaw hung slack, and his brows were arched.

  “What’s wrong?” Brianna slumped onto her back, sweat streaming from her brow as she struggled to peer down at her swollen belly. “What… is it?” she gasped. “Deform… ities? Is it a monster?”

  “No, not at all,” Avner replied. He pushed the staring front rider toward the front of the mine, whispering, “Go back to the portal. Tell Gryffitt to keep me informed, and to keep an eye out for those scouting parties. They should be here by now.”

  The front rider had barely left before the scout felt Brianna’s fingers digging into his arm.

  “Avner, tell me!”

  Before answering, the scout tried to free his arm, fearing Brianna would break it when she heard what he had to say. Like all Hartwicks, the strength of her giant ancestors still ran in the queen’s blood. Even in her weakened condition, her grip was powerful enough to crush bone.

  The queen’s fingers only dug deeper into his flesh. “The baby’s in… trouble.”

  Her eyes were once again glassy with pain, and they drifted away from his face. “It’s not… dead?”

  Avner took Brianna by her shoulders. “From what I can see, your baby’s alive and healthy.”

  This seemed to calm the queen. “It’s… it’s breech?”

  Avner took a breath, then shook is hea
d. “The child looks as if it might have been fathered by Stronmaus,” he said. “It’s large.”

  “Large?”

  “Maybe thirty pounds. It looks like a two-year-old,” Avner clarified. “It can’t fit through your pelvis.”

  Brianna scowled. “That… just… can’t be,” she objected. “Gerda said… she said no bab-iiiaaaargh!”

  The queen’s yell was so loud that Blizzard flinched and clattered a step back into the darkness. Brianna’s womb had closed around the infant like a fist. It was pushing the child against her pelvis so hard that the baby had nearly doubled in two. The young scout placed his hands on Brianna’s transparent belly, directly over the crumpled infant, and pushed against her womb.

  Brianna howled more loudly and beat her hands against the floor. Blizzard came out of the shadows, nickering at Avner. He ignored the petulant mare and kept his eyes fixed on the queen’s anguished face.

  “I’m sorry, Majesty,” he said. “Your own belly’s going to kill him. I don’t know what else to do.”

  The queen’s fist came down again, and a small piece of granite broke in two.

  “The firbolgs have found us for sure.” Gryffitt did not bother speaking quietly. “They’re bunching up!”

  “How long before they get here?” Avner asked. He could not imagine moving the queen, but neither could he imagine letting the firbolgs catch her here. “Do we have time to finish the delivery?”

  “We have a while,” Gryffitt replied. “Maybe ten minutes, fifteen if we go kill the one in front.”

  “You stay here,” Avner ordered. “What about the canyon rim? Is there any sign of our patrol?”

  It was a moment before Gryffitt replied. “I see something, just a few silhouettes.” He paused, then added, “But they’re too big to be humans, and they’re all-Stronmaus save us! I think they’re fomorians!”

  “Look across the canyon,” added Thatcher. “Verbeegs!”

  Avner felt his body go weak, and his muscles began to tremble. Fomorians and verbeegs were giant-kin, like firbolgs, and he knew it was no coincidence that they had appeared instead of the border scouts he was expecting. The entire giant-kin brood had united against the birth of Brianna’s child.

  “Av… ner!”

  Avner looked back to the queen, who had managed to prop herself on one elbow. Her other hand was rummaging for something inside the satchel where she kept her spell components.

  “Yes, Majesty?”

  “Do you… still have… Simon’s healing…”

  The queen did not have to finish her question. Avner took one hand away from her belly and reached into his cloak. He withdrew the small purple flask and offered it to her.

  Brianna shook her head. “Not yet.” She pulled her dagger from her satchel and turned the hilt toward Avner. “Baby might… need it.”

  The young scout stared at the weapon, uncomprehending.

  “You can see… the baby,” Brianna said. “It’s the only… way.”

  Avner was too terrified to reply. He could only shake his head and stare at the knife’s gleaming blade.

  “Take it!” Brianna thrust the weapon toward him, then collapsed onto her back. “Cut my child free… I command it!”

  Since dawn has my eagle battled the cold boreal wind, that I might witness the debacle below. Through his eyes have I watched the Sons of Masud fall like trees to the axes of men, and through his nostrils have I smelled their acrid blood heavy in the air. I have heard dying fire giants call my name, adjuring me to guide their spirits safely to Surtr’s fiery palace, and I have seen their warm corpses sinking into the ice. I have tasted the sour sapor of defeat, and it has filled my throat with the burning bile of despair.

  My plan, of course, was not perfect-I am no god-but it was sound. The fire giants were too slow to implement it; too slow, and too faint of heart.

  Cowards? Perhaps. They faltered. They faltered, and so the firbolgs will carry the day.

  I am watching them now, the firbolgs clambering toward Brianna’s dank hiding place. In grim silence they climb, thirty warriors no larger than bears, weary of gait and pale with their barbarous intent. Their compassion makes softlings of them all; worse, it makes them liars. What honest warrior would shirk at murder to save his people? Not I; I killed, and willingly.

  My eagle beats its wings, rising high above their heads and flying straight on toward the tunnel where Brianna hides. By the flickering torchlight inside, I see the queen’s guards pinning her to the floor, one with a knife poised above her womb. Foolish woman. If she had come to me, I would have removed the infant with my magic. Now, she must trust the child’s life to an unwieldy dagger and a trembling boy.

  My pet reaches the tunnel mouth and wheels along the mountainside. He dives deep into the canyon, down half the length of the slope, and swoops low over the first firbolg. Talons as sharp as needles rake his quarry’s face. The warrior screams and falls, his hands reaching for an empty eye socket. My eagle banks away, a volley of shouts chasing him over the dusky gorge.

  This small reprieve is all I have to offer the unborn emperor. It is little enough, I know, but Annam’s children have fallen farther than I thought. In Ostoria’s absence, the giants have grown as weak and stupid as all the races of Toril.

  “… and we know who did that, Charles.”

  “… now you must leave, my darling…”

  “Don’t be afraid. One foot after the other…”

  Be silent, I pray you!

  I know what the gods demand of me, yet I would tarry here a while longer. Even I cannot reach the mine ahead of the firbolgs, and I am loathe to leave the Vale before I must. For a mortal to relinquish himself is no great sacrifice; his life is a fleeting and uncertain thing, and it will end soon enough.

  I surrender eternity itself.

  From the queen’s hiding place erupts a shriek as piercing and shrill as a wyvern song. The voice, of course, is Brianna’s, and in her scream there is more hope than anguish. The eagle raises his head toward the mine, his predator’s mouth watering at the sound of her distress, but I command him to fold his wings and dive. The emperor is coming, and I must find a better way to guard the child than scratching at firbolgs’ eyes.

  5

  Into the Darkness

  The scream caught Tavis as a rope catches a hanged man, at the end of a long, lonely fall. The high scout found himself dangling in cold, bleak darkness, numb and queasy and thick-headed, with no idea of how long he had been plummeting through the icy murk. The flesh on one side of his body felt soft and pulpy where the fire giant’s boot had caught him, and a huge goose egg had risen where his skull had slammed into a boulder, but these injuries did not actually hurt. He was merely aware of them, as he was aware of the black, frozen emptiness into which he had sunk, and the anguished cry that had rent its desolate tranquility.

  Tavis would have heard that scream anywhere. Had he been at home in Castle Hartwick, he would have heard it ringing inside the keep’s thick granite walls; had he been fighting frost giants in the bleak northern plains, he would have heard it rolling across the white wastes of the Endless Ice Sea; and even in this lonely dark place, the cry had cleaved the frozen gloom like the almighty axe of Annam the All Father. Brianna was hurt.

  The first defender opened his eyes, and his mind turned inside out. The blackness through which he had been falling was suddenly inside his head, and Brianna’s voice yielded to the wailing wind. A crooked chasm of purple twilight took shape before the high scout’s eyes. He came to realize that he was lying head-down on a steep slope, staring up into the dusk sky. Save for the icy throbbing deep in his battered bones, his body had gone numb from cold, and the gorge felt as empty and deserted as the dark place from which he had come.

  Tavis dug his boot heels into the frozen hillside and slowly pushed his feet around, so that he would no longer be lying upside-down. The effort sent swells of frigid agony slushing through his body, and he began to form an idea of his injuries. His right f
lank hurt from his hip to his armpit. Each breath filled him with anguish, a sure sign that some of his ribs had snapped beneath the giant’s kick. One shoulder seemed strangely weak, as though the blow had momentarily popped it out of joint. His head hurt most of all. A swirling brown fog had seeped up from some rank place to fill it with caustic fetor and raw, aching pain.

  The high scout was injured, and badly. With each breath, the sharp point of a broken rib might be slashing his vital organs to shreds-the possibility seemed more likely every time he inhaled. He had certainly suffered a skull concussion, perhaps even a fracture. It would be some time before his thoughts came rapidly and clearly; more importantly, his reflexes would be slow, his judgment suspect. There was also the danger that his pummeled brain would let him slip away in a blissful sleep.

  Groaning, Tavis propped himself up. A short distance away stood a black spire eagle, no doubt here to feast on the battle carrion. The high scout brandished an aching arm, but the bird merely hissed and continued to watch.

  Fifty paces below Tavis, a belt of purple-shadowed ice ran alongside Wyrm River: the road. The surface was strewn with dark boulders and frozen, contorted bodies, both human and giant. Other than the high scout himself, there were no wounded. Unlike firbolgs, neither humans nor fire giants could tolerate bitter cold; their wounded were doomed to quick, frigid deaths.

  Farther up the canyon, the courtiers’ sleighs lay shoved and shattered to the side of the road, many with the twisted carcasses of draft horses still in the harnesses. Down the canyon, Tavis could barely make out a mangled heap of debris that had once been the royal sleigh. Nearby lay a few dark blotches, the corpses of men and horses that had died in the queen’s defense. Beyond the sleigh, the landslide’s jumbled slope was distant and dark. In the purple shadows near the crest lay the huge silhouettes of several fire giants. Save for a single pennon flag snapping in the wind, nothing moved, and no one cried for help.

  Tavis grew cold and queasy. His arms began to tremble, and such a wave of weariness washed over him that he nearly collapsed. Brianna was gone. He had heard her scream with his heart, not with his ears. The fire giants had carried her into their cavern-how long ago he could only guess-and her voice had traveled to him not through frigid air or dense granite, but through the mystical bond between husband and wife. To reach him across such a medium, the cry must have been as much spiritual as it was physical, and only one thing could cause his wife such grief: the giants had murdered their child.