by Troy Denning
“The tracks could belong to the princess,” Basil suggested.
“Or they could belong to the spy who betrayed her,” Tavis countered. “Either way, I’m not leaving here until we know for certain whose bones those are.”
“We’re as certain as we have time to be,” Basil said. “Our pursuers have spotted us, and now they’re redoubling their efforts to catch up.”
The verbeeg pointed down the mountainside. Though the scarp was not quite vertical, it was steep and barren enough so that Tavis could see the valley below, where the silvery ribbon of a shallow stream meandered across a lush carpet of pointed conifer trees. More than a dozen earls were urging their horses across the brook, their lances held high and their breastplates flashing like mirrors in the morning sunlight.
On the stream’s shore stood Morten, gazing up at the rocky shelf where the scout and his companions stood. If the bodyguard’s wounds still troubled him, he showed no sign of it. As each earl neared the shore, the burly firbolg looked away from Tavis to pull both horse and rider up the steep bank.
“Maybe they’re not coming after us,” Avner said. Despite his words, the boy’s voice was doubtful. “Maybe the king changed his mind and sent them to help.”
Tavis shook his head. “No, they’re coming to take us back,” he said. “If Camden were after the ogres, he would have sent more than a few earls.”
“This isn’t fair!” Avner griped. “If the king’s so willing to chase us down, he ought to send a company of castle guard after his own daughter!”
“You’re absolutely right,” Tavis replied, rubbing his chin. “Since Brianna disappeared, Camden’s been doing a lot of things that don’t make sense.”
“He’s too distraught to think clearly,” said Basil. “Anxiety clouds human judgment to unwarranted extremes, and your addled king is no exception. I fear he’s chosen us as his scapegoats.”
“Then let’s double back,” suggested Avner. “I saw a good place to set up an ambush.”
“So we can become murderers as well as thieves?” Tavis growled.
“Better their lives than ours,” Avner countered. “It’s the only way to save ourselves.”
“We’re trying to save Brianna, not ourselves,” Tavis said, his voice still cross.
“It’s too late to save her.” Avner pointed at the bone heap. “Even you can’t put her back together.”
“We can try,” Tavis replied. “That’s the only way we’ll find out who this really is.”
“But Morten and the earls—”
“Will have to climb the mountainside just like we did—and they’re wearing armor,” he said. “It will take them at least an hour. If you two help, we can sort through this mess by then.”
“And if we discover this is Brianna?” Basil asked. “What will you do?”
“I’ll lead you and Avner to safety before I give myself over to Camden,” Tavis replied. “After involving you in my trouble with the king, I owe you that much.”
Avner scowled at this, but Basil quickly stepped over to the heap and began to pick up bones. “Then by all means, let’s begin work,” said the verbeeg. “An hour isn’t much time.”
The trio soon had the pile scattered across the ledge, gathering the bones into three separate groups: human, ogre, and those they weren’t sure of. Tavis reduced the size of this last category by adding some of the unscorched bones to the human pile, since many of those that were obviously human also showed little sign of heat damage. Still, their skeleton lacked critical portions of the legs and back. Even the skull was missing, making it impossible for the scout to say whether the dead person had been as tall as Brianna.
“Well?” asked Basil, impatient.
Tavis shook his head. “I can’t tell,” he said. He picked up the human pelvis. “The hips look narrow for a woman’s, but I can’t be sure,” he said. “I’ve never tried to identify someone from a pile of bones before.”
“Don’t waste too much time puzzling it over,” Avner said. “I can’t see Morten and his friends anymore.”
“They’re probably circling around to come up behind us,” Tavis said absentmindedly. “Armor’s heavy, so they’ll stay mounted and try to traverse their horses up the slope. And the forest back there will offer cover from my arrows.”
“You’d actually shoot them?” Basil asked.
“He fired on Camden, didn’t he?” Avner’s voice was proud.
“I fired past his ear,” Tavis pointed out. “But even if the earls realize my miss was deliberate, they won’t be sure I’d show them the same courtesy. They’ll approach with caution. We have plenty of time.”
Returning his attention to the human’s bones, the scout pulled the shattered sternum from the pile and began fitting broken ribs to it. “These ribs were broken off like someone pulled them off one by one,” he observed. “And they all have tooth marks.”
Avner’s jaw fell agape. “The ogres ate her?”
“The shaman ate someone.” Though Tavis’s voice sounded calm, his mind was spinning with dreadful thoughts, all of them racing toward the same opinion Avner had just voiced. Doing his best to hold back the terrible conclusion, he continued, “But it doesn’t make sense that it was Brianna. Why bring her all the way up here to eat her? He could have done that anywhere along the way.”
“I may have an answer,” Basil said. He had stepped over to the pile of ogre bones and pulled their skulls from the heap. “There are fourteen heads, but we decided earlier that only eight died on Coggin’s Rise. Someone killed six more here.”
Avner stared at the human remains in obvious awe. “Brianna did that?” he gasped.
Basil nodded. “It would explain why the shaman devoured her here. If she didn’t die during the fight, he decided she was too dangerous to keep alive.” The verbeeg gestured at the human bones. “Either way, there she lies.”
Tavis shook his head, struggling against his panic. “No,” he said. “There are no signs of a fight, and I don’t see how Brianna could have killed so many ogres without help.”
“You’re ignoring the evidence,” insisted Basil. “What happened is plain enough. Now do as you promised and take us to safety—before our pursuers arrive to make that impossible.”
“If you’re so worried, stop wasting time by arguing,” Tavis replied, unaccustomed to having his conclusions challenged by those he was guiding. “Even if it means letting Morten catch us, I intend to find out whose bones those are. Now come on. Let’s see if we can locate the battleground.”
With that, the scout turned and led the way up the mountainside, following the ogre trail. The brutes’ footprints ran in both directions, as though they had gone up and down the slope several times. This puzzled Tavis for a time, but when they passed a hedge of gnarled, cold-stunted spruces and stepped into the stark barrenness above timberline, he realized what had happened. The six unexplained ogre deaths had occurred somewhere above the tree line, where there was no wood to make a funeral pyre. The surviving warriors had been forced to carry their dead back down the slope to burn them. That did not tell him much about the human skeleton, but the scout felt confident he would learn more when he found the place they had actually died.
“Where are you taking us?” Basil demanded, puffing mightily as he struggled to catch up with the scout. “We’ll be trapped up there!”
“Our quarry must have known a route through,” Tavis replied. Although the slope above ended at the base of a thousand-foot cliff with no visible breaks, the scout was not concerned. Runolf had taught him long ago never to place his faith in how a mountain looked from below. “Or do you think the ogres came up here by accident?”
This quieted the verbeeg, and Tavis continued his climb. Behind him, the two horses began to nicker and snort, for the terrain had grown treacherous as well as steep, with shaky rocks and loose ground that their hooves were ill equipped to travel over. The scout told Avner to release his gelding, and the beast promptly started back down the slope, but
Blizzard continued to follow the small company toward the stony wall above.
Tavis soon saw a steep ravine cutting down through the cliff face. A short distance from the bottom of the rocky gulch were nine dead mountains lions. Most of the beasts lay bunched together on the hillside, and all had been terribly mutilated during the course of a desperate fight. Dried blood had stained brown much of the rocky ground between them and the gorge mouth, while the deadly struggle had left small furrows of dark soil churned up and dozens of stones overturned.
“Brianna is a priestess of Hiatea, is she not?” asked Basil.
Tavis nodded.
“Well then,” the verbeeg added, “if this doesn’t convince you she’s dead, nothing will.”
Avner frowned. “What are you talking about? I’m as anxious as you to put some distance between us and Morten, but I don’t see any proof that the princess is dead.”
“Basil’s talking about the mountain lions,” Tavis explained. “They’re solitary creatures. They never run in packs.”
“So?”
It was Basil who explained. “Brianna summoned them. That’s how she killed six ogres.” The verbeeg cast a nervous glance down the mountain, then said, “Perhaps now we can leave.”
“We still have plenty of time,” Tavis said. “And those bones could be the spy’s.”
Basil snorted his derision. “Why would the shaman eat his own spy?” he demanded. “That has to be Brianna back there.”
“What you say makes sense,” Tavis allowed. He had a lump in his throat that felt like it might choke him, and he wasn’t sure that he cared if it did. “But I must be sure. You go on ahead while I look around.”
“Go ahead where?” Basil demanded.
Tavis gestured up the ravine.
“I stand a better chance against Morten than trying to climb that mountain—especially alone,” Basil hissed.
“Don’t you have a rune that could help?”
“Of course. I have runes that will transform me into mountain goats, birds, even snow apes—but that cliff is a high one. What happens when I change back to a clumsy verbeeg in the middle of the ascent?” Basil asked. “I’m better off staying here to help you look.”
The verbeeg turned his eyes to the ground and wandered away to search the hillside. Tavis went to the largest group of dead lions and kneeled down. The area was littered with bone shards and scraps of cloth, while the rocky ground beneath the beasts was coated with stale blood—some of it forming pools so deep that it still had not dried. The scout rubbed his fingertips in the sticky mess and raised the digits to his nose. The syrup smelled vaguely of iron and spoiling meat, and from that he concluded it had probably come from a human. It didn’t stink enough to be ogre, and the amount of it on the claws and feet of the mountain lions suggested it had come from their prey and not themselves.
Tavis pulled a scrap of cloth from the blood pool and rubbed it between his fingers. The fabric was wool, coarsely spun but tightly woven—the same material from which his own cloak had been made.
Basil came over and squatted down at the scout’s side. “I’m sorry to show you this.” The verbeeg opened his hand. In his palm lay a tiny flaming-spear amulet attached to a silver chain. “This is the symbol of Brianna’s goddess, is it not?”
Tavis pocketed the scrap of cloth he had picked up, then took the talisman. The amulet itself was in good condition, but the chain had been broken and several links were coated with dried blood. “Show me where you found this.”
Basil led him across the hill, to where a single dead mountain lion lay on its side. Although the beast had been badly mutilated, there was little sign of blood in the area.
“It was below this lion.” The verbeeg led the way down the hill, then stopped and waved his hand over the rocks. “I can’t remember where exactly, but this was the general area.”
Save for a few rocks Tavis and his companions had turned over during their descent, the area looked undisturbed.
“Did you see any blood?” Tavis asked.
The verbeeg shook his head. “No, but you saw those stains.”
“They don’t matter.” The scout allowed himself a deep sigh of relief, then slipped Brianna’s talisman into his cloak pocket and smiled. “The princess will be pleased to have her amulet back. I’ll be sure to tell her you were the one who found it.”
“You’ve lost your wits!” said Basil. “That’s blood on the amulet’s chain!”
Tavis nodded. “True. Brianna probably suffered a cut, or perhaps the blood came from someone else,” he said. “But those are the spy’s bones down there, not hers.”
Basil narrowed his eyes. “You’re just saying that so—” Realizing the folly of accusing the firbolg of lying, the verbeeg let the allegation drop in midsentence. “How do you know?”
Tavis reached into his pocket and removed the scrap of fabric he had recovered earlier. “I found this back there.” He pointed across the hill to where he had found the mountain lions lying amidst the scraps of bone and pools of blood. “That’s where our human was killed—by Brianna’s creatures.”
Basil pointed at the fabric in Tavis’s hands. “And I suppose that scrap confirms this?”
Tavis nodded, passing the cloth to him. “Coarse wool like this didn’t come from the clothes of a princess.”
Basil’s gray eyebrows came together. “Perhaps the ogres gave her a cloak.”
“Ogres don’t spin wool,” Tavis countered.
“I mean to suggest they stole it for her,” said the verbeeg.
“Did you see any dead men between here and the castle?” Tavis demanded. “Or perhaps you think they’d simply take a man’s cloak without bothering to kill him?”
“If they took it on the way in, we wouldn’t have come across the body,” Basil insisted.
“The ogres wouldn’t have done that,” the firbolg answered. “As they snuck into the valley, they’d avoid killing. A dead man’s companions might notice his absence and sound an alarm.”
“Speaking of alarms, it’s time for us to go,” said Avner.
The youth pointed down the mountainside, to where the small company’s pursuers were just coming through the stunted spruce hedge at timberline. Still carrying their lances and heavy shields, the earls remained mounted, kicking and cursing their horses as they forced the poor beasts up the treacherous slope.
“If they’re going to chase me, those earls would do well not to abuse their mounts.”
Tavis removed Bear Driller from his shoulder and loosed an arrow. Although the distance was far too great for most archers, the scout was able to place his shaft a few paces directly behind the lead rider. The near miss caused all the earls to draw up short and jump off their mounts. They took cover among the rocks, leaving Morten to clamber up the slope alone.
“What’s wrong with that firbolg?” demanded Basil. “How can he be so certain you won’t fire at him?”
“I don’t think he cares,” Tavis replied. “After losing Brianna to the ogres, he’d rather take an arrow than fail his king again.”
“Then let’s go,” Basil said. “I’ve no desire to let any firbolg reclaim his honor at my expense.”
“That won’t happen,” Tavis said. The scout led the way to the mouth of the steep ravine. “Once we’re up there in the gorge, even Morten won’t follow.”
“Why not?” Avner asked.
“Because he’s not going to redeem himself by committing suicide,” Basil said. “Which is exactly what he’ll be doing if he tries to come after us while a clumsy verbeeg’s up above him. I’m sure to send half the rocks in the ravine tumbling down on him—if I don’t fall and crush him myself.”
“That’s not exactly what I had in mind, but Morten’s too smart to risk an ambush up there,” said Tavis. The scout would have suggested that Basil paint himself with the same rune he had used to levitate Morten, but the process would take far too long. “Unfortunately, we’re going to have difficulties of our own. I can’t help y
ou both.”
“Help me? Up that?” Avner scoffed, looking up the ravine. It was little more than a rock chute, so steep that, had there been a stream running through it, it would have been a waterfall. “That’s a stairway compared to some of the walls I’ve scaled.”
Avner stepped in the ravine and began his ascent. He moved swiftly and surely, never taking more than one hand or foot off the rock, or lingering in one place more than a moment. The youth found handholds on the tiniest knobs of rock and braced his feet on stone faces so sheer it was hard to imagine what kept them from slipping. Tavis had seen many excellent climbers in his time—himself among them—but the boy put them all to shame.
Once Avner had ascended a short distance, Tavis nodded to Basil. “Your turn,” he said. “You’re big enough that you can climb the ravine like a chimney. Press an arm and a leg against each side, then move them up one at a time. I’ll be right behind you in case you need help.”
The verbeeg licked his lips. “You’re sure I can do this?”
“Would you rather wait for Morten?”
Basil reached into the ravine and drew himself up.
Before following, Tavis nocked another arrow and turned around. He found his view of the mountainside below blocked by Blizzard’s white-flecked frame. The mare was pacing back and forth, nervously nickering and glaring up the ravine.
“Sorry girl,” the scout said, using Bear Driller’s end to push her away. “You’ll have to trust me from here. You can’t follow where the ogres are taking Brianna.”
The horse stomped her hoof, then withdrew a few paces. On the mountainside below, Tavis quickly found Morten, still charging up the slope and now easily within arrow range. The scout drew Bear Driller’s string back, then aimed the tip of his arrow at the bridge of his target’s nose.
The bodyguard’s eyes widened in alarm, and he threw himself face first to the rocky ground. Tavis quickly adjusted his aim, then released his bowstring. The arrow hissed away. A loud ping echoed across the mountain as the steel tip struck the back side of Morten’s breastplate, then the shaft ricocheted away.
