by Troy Denning
A croak of despair, all the sound he could voice, tumbled from Tavis’s mouth. His arms folded beneath his weight, and he felt the cold ground beneath his back. Above the gorge’s opposite rim hung a blue star with a blurry white aura. The silvery halo began to dance like the boreal lights, and a female voice sang in a high, lilting pitch. A cold numbness fell over Tavis’s body. His eyelids began to close. He fought to keep his eyes open, but his grief, deeper than any pain tormenting his body, kept pulling them closed. He had failed his queen and his child. Something frightened and weak inside him wanted nothing more than to die and forget.
The throb of fluttering wings sounded over Tavis’s head, then a hard beak pecked his brow. The high scout’s eyes opened to find the eagle standing over him, its head cocked to one side.
“Wait till I die,” Tavis muttered. He raised his hands to push the bird away.
The eagle hopped aside, then opened its beak and screeched. The sound was deafening, as sharp and piercing as the shriek that had awakened him. Brianna’s scream. Whether Tavis had heard her with his ears or his heart, the queen had screamed. She needed him, perhaps now more than ever.
Tavis slipped a frostbitten hand into his cloak, his numb fingers searching for one of Simon’s healing potions.
*****
Avner’s hands were slick and warm with blood, and the baby’s skull was so large that he could barely hold it in both palms. When he tried to pull the infant through the incision in Brianna’s womb, the head slipped from his grasp and dropped back into the slick red pocket from which it had come. Although the queen’s belly was no longer transparent-the spell had faded when he began to cut-one of the front riders had lit a makeshift torch, and the young scout could now see the child’s profile. Even from the side, the infant looked as ugly as a troll, with a round heavy face, pug nose, and a wild mane of matted black hair.
“Get that baby out of me-now!” Brianna shrieked. She lay in front of Avner on her outspread cloak, her arms, legs, and head pinned to the floor by front riders. Although she was doing her best to hold still, she had been unable to keep from jerking and twisting as Avner opened her womb, and the struggle to restrain her had left the five front riders almost as exhausted as she. “Take it out, you clumsy oaf!”
An angry whinny sounded from deeper in the tunnel, where Blizzard had been tied to a rough-hewn mining timber. The mare’s hooves scraped a warning across the stone floor. Avner ignored the beast and pushed his hands back into the warmth of the queen’s stomach. He slipped his fingers under the baby’s jawline, then pulled slowly and steadily. The head and shoulders came out of the womb with a loud sucking sound. The child smelled coppery and sour, like a concoction of blood and curdled milk. It was wet with its mother’s blood, and covered by a thin coating of something that felt like wax. The infant was so large that Avner had to move his hands beneath the armpits before he could extract the hips and feet.
“By Stronmaus!” gasped Gryffitt, who was holding his belt over the queen’s forehead. “That boy’s as big as my two-year-old!”
“Tavis… was right? A boy?” Brianna croaked. Without awaiting an answer, she ordered, “Avner, clear… clear his-”
“I remember,” Avner replied. The queen had given him explicit instructions about every phase of the birth. “This is the one part I couldn’t forget.”
Avner turned the infant around and placed his mouth over the child’s nose and lips, then sucked the mucus plugs from the airways and spat the membranes onto the tunnel floor. They left a coating of sour-tasting slime in his mouth, but the young scout hardly noticed. The baby was as blue as a robin’s egg and just as still. His dull russet eyes were open, and he was staring at Avner with a vacuous, unblinking gaze.
“He’s not breathing,” Avner said. He looked to Brianna. “What am I supposed to do?”
“Make sure his passages are clear,” she replied. “Then wait a moment.”
Before the queen finished speaking, the child snuffled, then yawned, blinked, and glanced around the tunnel. When his gaze returned to Avner, the young scout could not help gasping. The newborn’s eyes had changed to a blue as pale and sparkling as glacier ice. With each breath the baby took, his complexion darkened and became more ruddy. His double chin vanished, his jowls tightened into a firm jawline, and his face grew thinner and more handsome. The infant’s stubby nose lengthened into a straight, bladelike appendage, and even his black hair seemed to be lightening to bronze.
“Iallanis save us!” cried the torch holder. “That child’s-”
“Breathing, you fool.” Avner cast a reproving glance at the man, who was the only other person who could have seen the transformation. “His color’s changing, that’s all.”
“Let… me see.” Brianna tried to raise her head, but even without Gryffitt’s belt holding it in place, she would have been too feeble to manage.
“Of course, Majesty.” Avner held the child up, deliberately keeping the face turned away from the queen. Although the incision across her abdomen wasn’t as gruesome as some belly wounds he had seen, Brianna had already lost enough blood to weaken even a Hartwick. The young scout feared the shock of seeing her child’s appearance change before her eyes would kill her. “He’s a handsome boy.”
“Give me,” Brianna commanded.
Although her eyes remained glazed, the queen’s smile was radiant, and Avner knew the worst of her pain was past. He held the child a moment longer, until he was certain the boy’s face had undergone the last of its mysterious changes, then nodded to Thatcher. The front rider released the queen’s arm, then took the infant and passed him to Brianna. She laid the baby on her chest, and he began to suckle immediately, clinging to her with a grasp as secure as a yearling’s.
“Now finish,” Brianna ordered. “Not much time before the firbolgs… And, Avner-”
“Yes, Majesty?”
The queen smiled beatifically, then said, “Thank you.”
With that, she returned her arm to Thatcher’s grasp and allowed the front riders to pin her to the ground once more. Avner slid a hand into Brianna’s belly and grabbed the umbilical cord-still blue and pulsing-then pulled gently. The queen gasped, more in surprise than pain. A small, membranous sack filled with pink-tinged fluid slipped from her womb. The young scout laid the pouch aside, then, as Brianna had instructed him, reached inside to make certain no part of the membrane had torn off.
Once the womb was completely empty, Avner untied a skin of blessed water that the queen had prepared and poured it over her incisions. Dark bubbles frothed up from the cuts, covering Brianna’s stomach with a thick, brown-streaked foam. The scout sat back and waited for the lather to do its cleansing work, happy he would soon be closing her up. It was disconcerting enough to see the queen naked, but after actually reaching inside her body to extract the child, he would never again look at her without being at once awestruck and embarrassed.
Avner felt almost in love with Brianna. He had become connected to her and the child on some spiritual level more profound than he could understand; when he looked at them, an alien warmth rose from deep within his heart, and he felt bound to the pair by a force far too powerful to resist. It was not an attraction the young scout welcomed. Such feelings seemed a betrayal of Tavis’s friendship, as though some part of him wanted to usurp his mentor’s place.
“Great,” he muttered to himself. “I’ll need a posting in the Eternal Blizzard to get past this.”
“What?” Brianna asked.
“I wish Tavis were here.”
“You’re… doing fine,” she said. “Tavis would be… proud.”
The dark bubbles on Brianna’s abdomen turned clear and drained off her body in pink-tinged runnels. Avner took a needle and thread from the torch holder, then began to sew the queen’s womb shut. Like all Border Scouts, one of the first things he had learned was how to mend both his comrades’ wounds and his own winter clothing, so he was no stranger to the art of stitchery. Despite his patient’s groans
and a steady flow of blood seeping from the incision, he worked quickly and efficiently, pinching the wound closed with one hand and hooking the curved needle through its edges with the other.
Avner had almost finished closing the womb when Blizzard neighed madly, then began to scrape at the ground and jerk against her reins. He glanced at the mare. Her eyes were fixed on the tunnel mouth, where the enormous silhouette of a firbolg was blocking the entire portal. Although the ’kin was kneeling on one leg, he was so large he had to stoop down and turn his head sideways to peer into the mine. His shoulders were as broad as the passage was wide. With pale blue eyes gleaming from a tangled wreath of windblown hair, his shadow-cloaked face resembled some fierce woodland spirit.
Several front riders released Brianna to reach for their weapons, and the queen herself cried out in alarm.
“Don’t worry about him!” Avner gestured the front riders back to Brianna. “We’ve got to finish here.”
“But he-”
“Do as I say!” Avner pulled a stitch tight. “We’ve plenty of time.”
Avner had learned the value of cramped spaces as a child, when he had often eluded the town guard by crawling into sewers or ducking through culverts. In narrow confines, the advantage belonged to the runt. The firbolg would need to squeeze into the tunnel on his hands and knees, making it easy for the queen’s party to flee deeper into the mine and find another exit-or to turn and fight, if it came to that.
Avner hooked the needle through the womb. Brianna flinched so violently that one leg slipped the grasp of an inattentive front rider, tightening a set of abdominal muscles that the young scout had carefully separated. The fibers slipped back into place, causing him to drag the sharp needle across the queen’s womb. Brianna screamed, her head jerking forward. Gryffitt’s belt held her in place, and the front riders once again pinned her securely to the ground.
“I see the queen’s birthing has been a difficult one,” said the firbolg. Avner recognized the rumbling voice as Raeyadfourne’s. “Give us the ugly child, and Munairoe will heal the mother.”
“Fine. Go fetch him.” Avner had no intention of letting any firbolg near Brianna, but it couldn’t hurt to buy time-especially if the needle had caused more injury to the womb. The young scout glared at the man who had allowed the leg to slip, then hissed, “Pay attention. You’re more dangerous to the queen than the firbolgs.”
Avner returned his attention to his patient and carefully pushed the stringy muscles away from the incision, then examined the small cut his needle had made. The tip had scratched the womb, but hadn’t pierced it. He glanced toward the front of the tunnel. Raeyadfourne was still watching and waiting for his fellows to arrive. The young scout did not like the chieftain’s patience. It suggested that he had someone who could offset the disadvantage of the cramped tunnel, perhaps a shaman or runecaster.
Blizzard continued to jerk at her reins and neigh at the firbolg, and Avner continued to sew, working as fast as he could without being careless. He was just putting in the last stitch when Raeyadfourne spoke again.
“Munairoe is coming up the trail now.” The firbolg was still kneeling at the front of the mine. His head was pushed just inside the collar, with the crown of his skull pressed against the roof of the tunnel. “Bring out the queen and her twins.”
It was the queen herself who replied. “I have only… one child, and he is handsome… as handsome as his father.” Brianna’s eyes shifted to Thatcher. “Show him.”
Avner nodded his permission, then opened one of Simon’s healing potions. He poured half the contents directly over the seam he had sewn in Brianna’s womb. The blood immediately ceased seeping from the closure. The edges fused together, leaving an ugly red scar in the incision’s place, but the queen was not ready to move. Before his task was complete, the young scout still had to close a layer of membrane and another of flesh.
As Avner worked, Thatcher released the queen’s arm and lifted the baby into the torchlight.
Raeyadfourne snorted in disgust. “That child? Kaedlaw?” he scoffed, using the firbolg word for ‘handsome as the father.’ “A name will not disguise a hideous face. Bring him out, and our shaman will help you survive to raise the princely one.”
“But I have… only one child!” Brianna protested. “And he… he is Kaedlaw.”
The queen’s brow was furrowed in confusion, as though she could not imagine why Raeyadfourne insisted on calling her child ugly. Avner feared he knew the reason. The firbolg did not see the same face as Brianna; he saw the visage that had been upon the child’s face at the moment of birth. The young scout glanced at the torch holder. The man was gazing toward the tunnel mouth, his eyes tense with the strain of keeping secret the transformation he had witnessed.
“Pay attention,” Avner hissed. “Hold that light down here, where I can see.”
Raeyadfourne’s rumbling voice filled the tunnel. “Galgadayle’s dreams have never been wrong. You must give us K-Kaed-uh-law.” The firbolg’s voice cracked with the strain of speaking a name that was a lie to his eyes. “We demand this for the good of Hartsvale, as well as our own.”
“We’ll give you nothing,” Gryffitt growled. “And if you want to take this handsome boy from the queen, you’ll have to do it from the sharp end of a lance.”
As Gryffitt made his declaration, Avner was carefully moving into place the edges of the translucent membrane he had cut to reach Brianna’s womb. He allowed her abdominal muscles to slip back where they belonged, then poured the remaining healing potion over the area. Normally, the patient was supposed to drink the elixir, but the queen had said her insides would mend faster if the tonic was poured directly onto them.
From outside came the heavy footsteps of a second firbolg. Raeyadfourne turned away from the tunnel mouth to converse with his fellow. Avner motioned the front riders to their weapons.
“Gather your things quietly,” he whispered. “We’ll be leaving shortly.”
“Where we going, if you don’t mind my asking?” asked Gryffitt. “Getting ourselves trapped in the back of a mine seems no better than fighting it out here.”
“Earl Wynn said the veins in this mountain cross each other like a tangle of worms-and the tunnels follow veins,” Avner explained. “With any luck, we’ll connect to another mine and sneak out that way.”
As the front riders gathered their parkas and weapons, Avner began to close the cut on the exterior of Brianna’s abdomen. Without the front riders to pin her down, she flinched and jerked whenever the needle pierced her skin, but her motions caused him little trouble. The movements were not as severe as when he had been closing her womb, and even if his hand slipped, he was not likely to cause serious injury. He worked as fast as he could, spacing the stitches just tightly enough to close the wound. If the edges overlapped in places, he did not worry. There would be time to tidy up later.
Avner was only half finished when Raeyadfourne spoke again. “Running will do you no good,” the firbolg said. “Even if you escape us, the fomorians and verbeegs will be waiting at the other exits.”
“I never thought to see the day when firbolgs consorted with the likes of those scum,” commented Gryffitt. He and the other front riders had already slipped back into their parkas and gathered their weapons. “Have you taken a sudden liking to thieves and murderers?”
Raeyadfourne shrugged, and it seemed to Avner that the firbolg had changed somehow. The chieftain’s silhouette appeared somehow more feral and threatening.
“The verbeegs and fomorians are our brothers,” Raeyadfourne explained. “If you surrender the ugly child, you have nothing to fear from them.”
“Let me heal the queen, and give us the second child,” boomed a second firbolg, Munairoe. “He will not suffer at our hands.”
Avner saw a pair of green eyes peering around Raeyadfourne and realized what had changed. The chieftain’s beard now hung clear down to his belly. His hair had become a long, wild mane, and, most importantly, his huge shoulders
no longer covered the tunnel mouth completely.
“He’s shrinking!” Avner gasped.
A guttural curse erupted from deep within Raeyadfourne’s throat. He threw off his bearskin cloak and pulled a four-foot hand axe from his belt, then scuttled into the tunnel. Although the chieftain still had to squat on his haunches, he was now small enough that his hands remained free to fight.
Blizzard went wild, filling the passage with ear-splitting shrieks. She whipped her head violently against her reins, drawing an ominous creak from the thick mining timber to which she was tied, and her hooves hammered the stone floor. The front riders ignored the angry mare and leveled their lances, moving forward to attack the chieftain.
“You men, wait!” Avner yelled. If the front riders attacked Raeyadfourne now, they would still be fighting when the rest of the firbolgs reached the portal. “Come back here!”
Avner pulled his hand axe from its sheath and hurled it at the post to which the Queen’s Beast was tied. The weapon tumbled straight to the timber and sliced cleanly through Blizzard’s leather reins. The angry mare hardly paused to gather her feet before springing up the passage. She bounded over Brianna and knocked the front riders aside as she barreled past to attack Raeyadfourne.
The firbolg’s hand axe rose and came down, burying itself deep into the mare’s flank. The wet snap of shattering bone echoed through the tunnel. Blizzard continued forward, bowling Raeyadfourne over and burying her teeth into his neck. She landed astride the chieftain, as a wolf might a man, and ripped a mouthful of flesh from his throat. Raeyadfourne bellowed in pain, a spray of blood erupting from the wound. He pulled his axe free and raised it to strike again. Blizzard lowered her muzzle to bite, and the vicious fight erupted into a bloody melee from which neither beast nor firbolg would emerge whole.
