The Giant Among Us

by Troy Denning

  The soldier let his sentence trail off, for Brianna’s face had gone pale. She was slowly backing across the room, her gaze fixed on the empty air.

  “Milady?” Tavis asked. He started to stumble toward her, but stopped when her expression changed to one of fear. “What is it?”

  Brianna shook her head, freeing herself of whatever it was that had gripped her mind. “It’s the prince,” she admitted. “There’s something about him.”

  Tavis nodded. “There is indeed,” he said. “But I’ll protect you. That’s my duty.”

  The queen blinked several times, then ran a doubtful gaze over Tavis’s battered body. “You’re hardly in condition to perform that duty—or any other.”

  “But I can—if you’ll lend me your ice diamonds,” Tavis said, tightly gripping the necklace. “They’ll numb my pain.”

  “But they were a gift—”

  “From a man you fear,” Tavis said. When Brianna frowned and started to object, the scout quickly interrupted. “Don’t deny it. I can see in your eyes that he frightens you. How can you value any gift of his?”

  A confused expression came over Brianna’s face. She looked away and forced herself to shake her head. “I suppose I shouldn’t,” she said. “You may borrow the diamonds.”

  “Thank you, Majesty,” Tavis sighed. “Now we can defeat the prince.”

  The scout sat in a chair and rubbed the cold stones over his anguished feet. As the icy numbness began to replace the searing agony in his feet, he motioned the red-bearded soldier over.

  “I want you to take a message to Captain Selwyn.”

  * * * * *

  Basil painted the last line of his rune, then raised the silver chalice to admire his work. “A true work of art, if I say so myself,” he said. “My thanks for providing such excellent material, Avner.”

  The youth gave a casual shrug. “I used to find stuff like that all the time.”

  They were in the small chamber where Basil had originally been confined. Avner sat in the windowsill, keeping an eye on the battle outside. Although he could not see over the inner curtain, the youth could tell by the number of refugees streaming through the inner gate that the giants had broken through the outer curtain.

  “I don’t understand why you needed a cup,” Avner said, continuing to watch the inner gate. “What are you going to do, crush the ice diamonds and make Brianna drink them?”

  “Oh, dear me, no!” the verbeeg replied. “Where’d you get an idea like that?”

  “You said you were going to reverse the love magic,” Avner said. “And the magic’s in her necklace.”

  Basil shook his head. “That’s what you’re supposed to think.”

  “Supposed to think?” Avner asked. “Says who?”

  “Says the Twilight Spirit,” Basil explained. “His real name is Lanaxis, by the way.”

  A deafening boom sounded in the front bailey, then Avner saw the head of a frost giant’s axe rise briefly above the inner curtain.

  “What are you talking about, Basil?” the youth demanded. “Who’s this Lanaxis?”

  “I wish I had the proper folio—but I’m sure the earl has returned it to his library by now,” Basil said. “I’d read it to you. You might find it quite interesting.”

  “I’ll settle for the short version.”

  Basil nodded. “I thought you might.” The verbeeg cast an annoyed glance toward the battle outside, then raised his voice like an orator speaking over the din of a storm. “It seems that many millennia ago, before the first human kingdoms arose, this part of the world was ruled by an empire of giants known as Ostoria. The kings of this realm were the firstborn of each race of giants, immortal sons born directly of Annam the All Father and Othea the Mother Queen.

  “Unfortunately for these kings, a marital dispute between their parents resulted in the creation of the Endless Ice Sea, which promptly began to swallow their lands. Needless to say, this upset the giant kings, so they decided to destroy the glacier. But their mother, Othea, heard about the plan and forbade her sons from carrying it out

  “So Lanaxis, the first titan, and Julien and Arno, the first ettin, poisoned her. Unfortunately, they inadvertently poisoned most of their brothers as well.”

  “Most?” Avner asked. Somewhere outside, a chorus of screams announced the destruction of a catapult crew.

  “All except one, and he’s of no consequence to us,” Basil clarified. “What is of import is this: before Othea died, she sentenced Lanaxis and the ettin to live in the twilight of her shadow for as long as they wished to remain immortal—and so they have.”

  “That’s where the Twilight Vale is,” Avner surmised.

  Basil nodded. “But now, the ettin has sacrificed his immortality to kidnap Brianna.”

  Avner frowned. “What about Tavis?” he demanded. “Doesn’t he know about the golden arrow—?”

  “The ettin knows,” Basil interrupted. “That’s why he isolated us in this remote castle, where only a great scout stood any chance of summoning help. Then, once Tavis was out of the way, the ettin made his attempt.” The verbeeg smiled very proudly at this point. “I stopped him.”

  “Good for you,” Avner said. At another time, he might have asked Basil to elaborate. “I still don’t see what that has to do with the ice diamonds.”

  “You’ve never played Wyverns and Wyrms, have you, my boy?” Before Avner could answer, the runecaster continued, “You see, to win, you must guess the opponent’s plans. So a good player, knowing that the other player will try to figure out his plans, always plants false clues.”

  “And that’s what Arlien did to us.”

  “Exactly,” Basil said. “Lanaxis has had a very long time to learn the game of Wyverns and Wyrms—thousands and thousands of years. The ice diamonds were a decoy. The necklace seems to have a certain deadening effect on Brianna’s emotions, but the real magic is in the potion that Arlien’s been feeding her. We were lucky to find him out when we did.”

  Avner nodded. “Fine,” he said. “But I still don’t get what they want with Brianna. Giving up your immortality is an awfully high price to pay for a woman—even a queen.”

  “But not for someone who can bear a king that will restore your lost empire,” Basil said.

  “The giants think Brianna can do that?” Avner gasped. He was still watching the inner gate.

  Basil nodded. “And they may be right. You see, when Othea died, she was still carrying Annam’s last unborn son.…”

  Avner did not hear the rest of the explanation, for his attention had been captured by a pair of armored figures climbing through the mandoor of the inner gate. One of them was wearing a distinctive horned helm.

  “We’re out of time,” the youth reported. “Arlien’s coming, and Cuthbert’s with him!”

  As the youth spoke, an extremely long wooden arrow arced away from the keep, apparently fired from a window one floor below. The shaft hissed across the ward in the blink of an eye, then bounced off Arlien’s magical armor without causing any harm.

  “Tavis is awake!” Avner yelled.

  Basil rose to his knees and stuck his massive head into the window, nearly crushing the youth against the sill. Another wooden arrow hissed away from the keep, but the prince and everyone around him were already scrambling for cover. The shaft missed its target cleanly and lodged itself in the gate.

  “But Brianna couldn’t possibly heal him until her mind is clear!” Basil objected. “He can’t be in any condition to fight!”

  “As long as he can crawl, Tavis can fight,” Avner replied. “I just don’t know if he can win.”

  A third arrow arced across the ward, this time glancing off one of Arlien’s pauldrons. The prince watched the shaft clatter to the cobblestones, then rushed through the entrance to the nearest gate tower and disappeared from sight. Through the tower, Prince Arlien would have access to the ramparts of the inner curtain and, eventually, to the keep itself.

  Earl Cuthbert reacted more slowly, s
imply bracing himself against the wall of the gate tower and staring toward the keep as if he couldn’t quite comprehend what was happening. When no more arrows came arcing across the ward, he finally seemed to recover from his shock. He waved a dozen soldiers over and tried to follow Arlien into the gate tower, but the door did not open. The earl spun around, leading his small company across the ward toward the dungeon tower.

  “Basil, there’s a secret tunnel in that tower.” Avner pointed toward the earl’s destination. “I think it leads to the keep. Arlien and Cuthbert will trap Tavis between them!”

  Basil furrowed his brow. “We can’t know what Cuthbert intends, but I suppose we must assume the worst” The verbeeg pulled his massive head back into the chamber, then thrust the silver chalice into Avner’s hand. “Take this to Arlien’s room. Somewhere, you’ll find a vial or flagon filled with a magic potion. Pour that into this goblet and have Brianna drink it. Then tell her to await Tavis in the temple.”

  “And what are you going to do?” Avner asked.

  “Catch Tavis and send him to the temple, of course.”

  * * * * *

  Tavis rushed across the narrow drawbridge toward a small tower on the rear wall of the inner curtain. Each breath brought with it the sickening stench of battle: the coppery fetor of spilled blood, the acrid reek of flaming oil, the charred rankness of burning flesh. The scout seemed to stumble every third step, for he felt as though he were walking on someone else’s mangled feet. Although he was wearing Brianna’s ice diamonds around his neck, the cold stones merely replaced his agony with icy numbness. They did nothing to heal the firbolg.

  Tavis worried that the necklace’s enchantment would leave him as befuddled as Brianna, but he suspected the spell worked its magic gradually so as not to be noticed. So far, he seemed to be right, for he hadn’t noticed any ill effects. Besides, the scout had little choice except to wear the jewelry. Without the relief of the frigid gems, his battered body simply would not function well enough for battle.

  The scout reached the far end of the bridge and stepped into the fortified tower. He traveled down a short corridor lined by murder holes, then opened a heavy oaken door into the tower’s main room. In the center of the chamber stood two of Selwyn’s Winter Wolves, busily reloading their tripod-mounted crossbows.

  A hill giant thrust his enormous fingers through one of the arrow loops that overlooked the castle’s rear bailey. The entire tower trembled as the brute hammered at the exterior wall. One of the Winter Wolves locked his bowstring into place, then slipped a long iron quarrel into his weapon’s firing groove. He dragged the heavy crossbow forward and fired through the arrow loop containing the giant’s hand. The brute bellowed, then the pounding stopped and the enormous fingers vanished from sight.

  Tavis slipped his bow, taken from the keep armory, over his shoulder. He replaced it with a shield and battle axe that he borrowed from one of the Winter Wolves. Having watched his arrows bounce harmlessly off Arlien’s armor, the scout now realized the only way to stop the prince was in close-quarters combat.

  Fortunately, that would be easy to arrange. The single avenue into the keep was across the drawbridge that Tavis had just crossed. The one path to the bridge was through this bridge tower, and the only route into the tower was along the top of the inner curtain. The scout intended to meet Arlien as far down the ramparts as possible, then fight him every step of the way.

  Tavis left the tower and limped along the rear wall toward one of the great corner towers of the inner curtain. The battle din grew more distinct than it had been in the keep, with boulder after boulder pounding the walls, ballista skeins crackling like lightning, and the dirge of dying warriors echoing over the ward.

  The scout hardly noticed the clamor. His attention was locked on the inner curtain’s western rampart, where he expected to see Arlien at any moment. Picking out the prince’s armored form would not be easy. A pall of black smoke covered much of the rampart’s length, and the rubble of shattered merlons choked the few visible sections of wall. Bleeding and dazed men were everywhere, lying half-buried under debris, wandering aimlessly along the walkways, sitting in pools of oil that had not yet caught fire.

  As Tavis approached the corner tower, he caught a glimpse of Selwyn. The captain was about halfway down the rampart, sprinting alongside a dozen of his Winter Wolves. With tabards singed, helmets missing, and breastplates torn half off, they all looked terribly battered. That did not stop them from hefting their axes and charging into the smoke with a chilling battle howl. The scout caught a glimpse of the red-bearded soldier he had sent to warn Selwyn about Arlien’s identity, then the entire group vanished from sight.

  Tavis rushed through the corner tower, which was a larger version of the bridge tower, and threw open the door leading to the western rampart. In the smoke ahead, he heard the harsh clang of steel on steel. Selwyn’s voice cried out in pain.

  Tavis limped toward the howl as fast as he could. The scout had lurched forward no more than five steps when he spied the captain and two soldiers backing out of the smoke. All three Winter Wolves were soaked with blood. Arlien followed close behind, his armor and weapons smeared with crimson—none of it from his own wounds. The prince fixed his gaze on Selwyn, then shrieked wildly and charged. The three Winter Wolves spread across the rampart, lifting their own weapons to meet the attack.

  Arlien tore into them like a whirlwind, crushing the outside man’s breastplate with a hammer strike so powerful that it flung his disjointed body into a merlon. The prince took the second Winter Wolf on the back swing. The blow easily overpowered the fellow’s guard and smashed his head in the same stroke.

  Selwyn countered with a vicious strike to the midsection, but the battle axe merely chimed off Arlien’s enchanted armor. The prince smashed the heft of his hammer into the captain’s head. The steel helmet split in two, Selwyn collapsed at the prince’s feet, and the battle was done in the time it had taken Tavis to travel four steps.

  Arlien kicked Selwyn’s body aside, then looked down the rampart toward the firbolg. “Tavis Burdun,” he said. “I thought it would take more than an avalanche to kill you.”

  “It will.” Tavis hefted his battle axe. “Much more.”

  17

  Bitter Wine

  From the keep roof, the battle seemed a thing as murky and frenzied as the queen’s whirling thoughts. To the east, fifty men stood on the ramparts of the inner curtain, hurling boulders and flaming oil down on a long file of cone-shaped helmets, all Brianna could see of the frost giants fighting toward the castle’s rear bailey. To the west, dozens of hill giant rafts were burning out on the lake, pouring so much smoke through the battered remnants of the outer curtain that the outer ward had disappeared beneath an unfathomable sea of gray fume.

  The queen hardly had a better view of the ramparts themselves. Pools of burning oil were steadily creeping down the walkways and dribbling into the inner ward, filling the air with clouds of dark, greasy smoke that permitted only intermittent views of the debris-choked ramparts. When Brianna did catch a glimpse of the walls, she saw corpses and wounded lying everywhere, trapped beneath the rubble of shattered merlons or strewn among the splinters of smashed ballistae.

  The queen’s shoulders slumped under a guilty weight. She ached to send the keep guard down to help the men on the walls, but she knew that would accomplish nothing. The battle was already lost, and committing her last reserves would make the giants’ final victory only easier. It would be better to wait here and make the enemy attack the keep’s formidable defenses. The small company would never hold, of course, but more giants would fall. Brianna owed her soldiers that much.

  A short distance from the rear corner tower, two plumes of smoke temporarily drifted apart, revealing Arlien’s armored form striding along the ramparts. Several paces in front him stood Brianna’s battered bodyguard. The firbolg still wore her ice diamonds, but he was now armed with a shield and battle axe. A cold queasiness filled the queen’s s
tomach, and she found her hand drifting toward her bare throat.

  Brianna heard someone approaching from the center of the roof, then Avner cried, “What’s Tavis doing down there? He’s in no condition to fight!”

  The hole in the smoke closed as quickly as it had opened, once again concealing the two warriors. Brianna turned her attention to Avner. The boy was holding a silver chalice and the flagon from which Prince Arlien had poured his concoctions.

  “What are you doing with that?” she demanded.

  “You have to drink this.” Avner filled the chalice, then raised it toward her. “It’ll make you feel better.”

  The familiar odor of fruit and spice pervaded the queen’s nostrils. Her stomach began to churn, and she felt an irrational sense of dread building within her breast. Brianna raised her hands to ward off the proffered cup.

  “Take it away,” she said. “It clouds my head.”

  “Not this time, it won’t.” The boy turned the chalice around, displaying a painted rune. “Basil said the prince has been using a love potion on you. Drinking out of this cup will reverse the effects.”

  Brianna narrowed her eyes. “Basil’s in the dungeon.”

  “Basil was in the dungeon,” Avner corrected. “But right now, he’s trying to catch Tavis so you can heal him.”

  “Avner, I’ve tried,” Brianna said. “I can’t.”

  “Drink this, and you can,” the youth countered. “Trust me.”

  Brianna made no move to take the goblet. “Trust you?” she scoffed. “Aren’t you the same boy I caught stealing Cuthbert’s folios? And who sneaked off rather than face his punishment?”

  Avner continued to hold the goblet. “You’re not drinking this for me, or even for Tavis,” he said. “You’re drinking it for Hiatea.”

  “For Hiatea?” Brianna asked.

  “It’ll clear your mind.” Avner took her arm with his free hand, then slipped the chalice into her grasp. “So you can find her again. You’ll remember your spells.”