by Troy Denning
The runecaster did not have to clarify what he meant. If both children had been born in the same body, then the imposter’s spawn could not be destroyed without killing Tavis’s son as well. A queasy feeling filled the high scout’s stomach. He was torn between two intolerable prospects: allowing the ettin’s offspring to mature and lead the giants against the northlands, or helping the ’kin murder his own child.
Tavis’s oath as lord high scout allowed only one choice. He had promised to protect Brianna’s kingdom and defend her person against Hartsvale’s enemies, even if it meant taking her life to prevent them from capturing her. If Basil was right, the only way he could keep his vow was to slay not the queen, but her child-and his child as well.
Tavis’s hands started to tremble, then his knees grew weak and he had to brace himself on the icy merlon. He was beginning to understand why Brianna did not want him near her baby.
“If that child truly looks like me to Brianna, I can’t imagine how she feels.”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”
Tavis looked into his friend’s ancient eyes. “Basil, we must find out exactly who K-Kaedlaw is,” he said. “And I’m afraid the burden must lie with you.”
“Why?”
“Because Brianna’s not going to let me anywhere near that baby, and I don’t blame her,” Tavis replied. “Besides, we already know what I see. Maybe your vision will prove truer than mine, especially with the aid of your runes.”
“At the moment, I suspect the queen would not look kindly upon me-or any giant-kin-painting runes on her child’s forehead,” Basil replied. “Besides, Kaedlaw’s parentage is hardly important.”
“Of course it is!” Tavis growled. “There’s more at stake here than my pride-much more.”
Basil shook his gaunt head. “That’s what I came to tell you,” he said. “It doesn’t matter if Galgadayle’s dream is right.”
“How can that be?”
The verbeeg twisted his thick lips into a cunning smile. “Because we have the power to prevent the prophecy from coming true-and it wouldn’t matter if Kaedlaw’s father was Memnor himself!”
Tavis grimaced. “Are you saying what I think?”
Basil’s eyes twinkled like stars in the purple twilight sky. “I found Annam’s axe,” the verbeeg confirmed. “I know where Sky Cleaver is, and you can recover it.”
Tavis backed away. He would have stepped outside Basil’s rune circle had the verbeeg not stopped him.
“You know what I think of this,” Tavis said. “Mortals were not meant to wield such weapons.”
Basil’s grin only widened. “I know,” he said. “The giants will have no choice except to bow to you. As for Galgadayle and the ’kin armies-well, they can join us, or fall beneath our might.”
Tavis shook his head, more in disbelief than opposition. “Basil, listen to yourself! You don’t even have the axe, and already you’re talking as though you rule the world.”
The verbeeg nodded. “I know,” he said. “That’s why I mustn’t be the one. But your heart is pure, Tavis. You can wield the axe for all of us.”
“My heart may not be as pure as you think,” Tavis replied. He would never be able to look at Kaedlaw without feeling a very private anger. “And even if I were as pure and noble as you believe, what happens to the weapon when I die?”
Basil rolled his eyes. “Tavis, you aren’t going to die for a long time-not with Sky Cleaver in your hand!”
“Everyone dies sooner or later, Basil,” Tavis said. “But a weapon like that endures forever. Even if I have the strength to control it, the next owner may not-and I won’t be responsible for what happens to the world then.”
“So, put it back before you die!” Basil snapped. “But Sky Cleaver would give you the power to keep your oath to Brianna. You must wield it-or break your word.”
The verbeeg folded his arms across his chest and stared down his cob nose.
“That might be so-if I could control the axe,” Tavis said. “But you’re hardly power-mad, Basil, and the mere thought of Sky Cleaver fills your head with visions of conquering giants and forcing the ’kin tribes to bow at our feet. How can I hope to resist the weapon’s lure when I actually hold it in my hands?”
“That’s-that comparison’s ridiculous!” Basil sputtered. “I’m a verbeeg. I don’t have any morals!”
“My point exactly,” Tavis replied. “Once I recover the weapon, you will stop at nothing to steal it away.”
“There would be no need to steal it,” Basil answered. “I have no interest in becoming any sort of emperor.”
“Then what do you get?”
A hungry light flickered to life in Basil’s eyes. “Knowledge,” he answered. “Sky Cleaver has the power to cut to the heart of any matter.”
“I should have known,” Tavis snorted. “Never, Basil. Not if the giants were pouring through the gates and I was the last warrior alive to defend the queen.”
“Really?” The verbeeg’s lip curled into an oddly affable sneer. “It may be the only way to learn Kaedlaw’s true paternity.”
Tavis stepped forward until he was standing chin-to-chest with the verbeeg. “Basil, you should know better than to try extorting me,” he warned. “You may be a friend, but even you cannot stand between me and my sworn duty.”
The runecaster’s sneer vanished. He looked over the parapets and fixed his eyes on the white plain, where the purple twilight shadows were inexorably sliding toward Wynn Castle. “I had to try. You know that.”
“No, I don’t, Basil,” Tavis replied. “Some things are unpardonable, even for verbeegs.”
Tavis stepped back and rubbed his boot sole across the floor, wiping away a small swatch of Basil’s privacy rune. The entire circle evaporated, as did the symbol at its heart.
Tavis heard his guards crying out in astonishment. He scowled, unable to imagine that a vanishing rune would cause such a reaction, and turned to find the soldiers standing on the opposite side of the tower. They were pointing toward the inner ward, where an eagle-shaped cloud of purple gloom was spiraling down from the twilight sky.
“What is it?” The sergeant glanced back at Tavis. “Is Hiatea herself coming to see the queen’s child?”
“I doubt it.” Tavis started across the roof. “Sound the alarm-and get your men to the keep!”
The sergeant shoved his warriors into the stair turret.
The murky eagle lowered a pair of great, taloned feet and swept low over Wynn Keep, beating its huge wings to bring itself to a halt. A tremendous wind buffeted the inner ward, raising a thunderous clatter as cobblestones and other debris sailed into the walls. The bird settled to the ground, concealing its lower body behind the high ramparts of the inner curtain. It stretched its wings to its sides, and the feathers curled back upon themselves to create a pair of armlike limbs. The raptor’s deep breast broadened into a wide, manlike chest, and the feathers on its neck became a fringe of long dark hair.
“Diancastra watch over us!” Basil hissed, his flat feet slapping the roof behind Tavis. “And may Hiatea save the queen, for we never will!”
The last of the shadow bird’s feathers vanished, then a pair of ears sprouted behind its temples. The hooked beak retracted into a long aquiline nose, and the murky creature was suddenly an impossibly huge giant. The colossus stood taller than Wynn Keep itself. His shoulders were as broad as the corner towers, and his biceps larger than their stair turrets. He wore a cloak of purple twilight, with a sash of starlight shimmering across one shoulder. Upon his head sat a crown of black silver beset with rubies and sapphires darker than the night.
The giant’s face was as swarthy as his attire, with teeth the hue of robin eggs, gleaming damson eyes, and skin so richly purple it was almost black. Save for the silhouette of his square-cropped beard and a sliver of moonlight glinting off his brow, little else could be seen of the intruder’s features. The colossus seemed more an apparition of the dusk than a living, breathing being, and
Tavis knew that his wife’s true enemy had shown himself at last: the Titan of Twilight.
9
Wynn Keep
On the head of the spear danced a silver flame, a flame fueled not by burning oil or blazing pitch, but by the queen’s ardent devotion. When she felt the cold floor shudder beneath her knees, that flame sputtered and dwindled to a cinereal flicker. Through the shuttered window came the muffled and distant voices of shouting men. The floor trembled again. The spear shaft rattled in its sconce, and the pearly faith flame winked out altogether. The queen’s thoughts reeled inside her mind. She found herself plummeting through a vast, abyssal void. She continued to fall, her head spinning ever faster, until Kaedlaw growled in the darkness.
The rumble caught Brianna like a rope. Her thoughts stopped swirling, and she was suddenly, completely there, kneeling in the small cold temple, listening to her son grumble on the altar before her. The queen reached out, blindly feeling her way along the stone platform until she located her fur-swaddled child. She pulled him out of his wrappings and tucked him beneath her cloak, then called for Avner.
A squeal rang off the stone walls as the door’s iron hinges grated open. The young scout stepped into the doorway, filling the small chamber with the shimmering yellow glow of his candle.
“Yes, Brianna?” He reached her side with a single step. “What did you learn?”
“Nothing. I was interrupted.” The queen held her hand out to him. Even kneeling, her arm was at the height of Avner’s chest. “But it doesn’t matter. I know who fathered my child. Tavis is the one who can’t see straight.”
A troubled look flashed across Avner’s face. “Milady, I should…” He hesitated, then slipped an arm beneath her elbow. “Well, you should know Tavis isn’t the only one.”
Brianna did not rise. “What do you mean by that? Surely, you haven’t betrayed me as well?”
“Of course not, Majesty!” The young scout’s jaw dropped in a show of indignation. “I was speaking of Raeyadfourne. He didn’t find the prince handsome, either.”
Brianna studied Avner’s face. The young scout’s difficult childhood had made a master liar of him, and she found it more difficult to read his hidden feelings than those of her most devious earls. Had he really been thinking of the chieftain, or had he also seen the strange face she had glimpsed in the mines?
“I fail to see what Raeyadfourne’s reaction has to do with my husband’s.” Through the closed window came the muffled trumpet of an alarm horn. The ’kin were attacking sooner than expected, but Brianna was far from concerned. Reinforcements would arrive long before her enemies could breach Wynn Castle’s thick walls. “Raeyadfourne is my enemy. Tavis is the father of my child-whether he admits to it or not.”
“I know-but you shouldn’t be so hard on the lord scout,” Avner said. “Firbolgs see Kaedlaw differently than humans.”
“My point exactly.” Brianna rose to her feet, relieved that the young scout was only trying to defend Tavis. She had already ascribed the incident in the mine to a delusion and had no wish to second-guess herself now. “People see what they expect. If Tavis sees a monster in his child’s face, it is because he trusts the firbolg seer more than he trusts me. I have not decided whether that is treason to his queen, but it is certainly betrayal to his wife.”
Through the temple door echoed the tramp of boots, stomping up the curving stairwell that connected the tiny chamber to the rest of the keep. From outside the small window came the snap of firing crossbows and the sound of shouting voices.
Avner frowned. “That sounds like it’s coming from the inner curtain.” He set his candle on the altar, then stepped to the shuttered window. “I’d better see what’s happening.”
“It can’t be the firbolgs,” Brianna said. “We would’ve heard the siege-”
“Don’t open the shutter!” The soldier’s voice came from the stairwell. “He’ll grab the queen!”
Brianna spun around to find a fully armored garrison guard clambering into view. In his hands, he held a cocked and loaded crossbow, which he was pointing across the temple at the small window.
“Who will grab me?” Brianna lifted her spell satchel off the altar. “We’re thirty feet off the ground! Even storm giants aren’t that tall.”
“The fiend is!” The guard climbed into the doorway. Behind him followed a long line of his fellow warriors. “The giants must’ve called him. He’s walking ’round the keep, looking in-”
A sharp crack sounded from the window, followed by a blast of icy wind. Avner cried out, and Brianna looked over her shoulder. The shutter was gone. Avner was staring gape-mouthed through the casement, his eyes fixed on a buckler hovering outside. The shield had a peculiar design, with a black, platter-sized disk set in a damson circle.
“Stand aside!”
The garrison guard rushed into the temple, raising his crossbow to his shoulder. Avner backed away from the window, and the weapon clacked, sending a bolt of black iron through the casement. In the same instant, a purple lid slid down to cover the buckler outside.
An eye!
The quarrel passed through the lid without tearing the skin or drawing blood; it simply disappeared as though it had entered a bank of fog.
“Hiatea help us!” Brianna clutched Kaedlaw more tightly to her breast. “No giant is that big!”
The lid rose, once again revealing the huge eye. The pupil was as black and deep as Memnor’s cold heart. A low, rumbling thunder reverberated through the temple walls. So sonorous was the sound that it took Brianna a moment to recognize it as a voice.
“… the child,” it growled. “Come to the window.”
Another clack sounded from the door, sending a second quarrel past Brianna’s shoulder. This time, the eye didn’t blink. The bolt simply sailed into the black pupil and vanished.
Avner grabbed Brianna’s arm and pulled her toward the stairwell. The narrow passage was crammed with soldiers, each holding a loaded crossbow and struggling to see past the warrior ahead.
“Stand aside, you men!” Avner yelled. “Let the queen pass!”
The young scout forced his way into the stairwell, shoving two men aside so Brianna could squeeze in after him. Though the soldiers were pressed flat against the wall, the corridor was so tiny she could barely force her way past their armored bulk. From behind her came the sound of clanging steel; the men who had already entered the temple were attacking with their swords.
A tremendous crash shook the chamber. A gray cloud of dust billowed into the stairwell, filling Brianna’s mouth with the caustic bite of powdered rock and mortar. A pair of screams sounded from the temple. The guards at the top of the stairs fired their crossbows, then pulled their hand axes and rushed into the room. The next sound was the shrill grate of crumpling armor. One of the soldiers fell instantly silent. The other began to wail. It was not the cry of someone who would die quickly, but the spastic gurgle of a man drowning in his own blood.
The queen and Avner had barely pushed past the next guard before this man also fired and charged. His scream was mercifully short, then a deafening clatter sounded from the top of the stairs. Brianna glanced over her shoulder and saw a purple hand tearing away the curved wall behind her. The appendage was the size of a double door, with knuckles as large as boulders and fingers the length of battle-axes.
The fist withdrew to discard the rubble in its grasp. A pair of guards hefted hand axes and shoved past the queen. The appendage returned to the cramped corridor, and the two men began hacking at the wrist. Their blades sank through the purple flesh as though it were mist The hand pushed past them and reached for Brianna.
“Go, Avner!”
The youth flung himself headlong down the passage, shoving the guards over backward. Brianna sprang after the young scout-then felt something cold and ethereal slipping around her waist. She tried to break free but managed only to crush her tender abdomen against her captor’s hand. Searing pain boiled up through her stomach, filling her with such
agony that she screamed and nearly dropped Kaedlaw. She was entwined from the waist down by four dark fingers, each as large as a firbolg’s arm.
Avner gathered his feet and spun around, drawing his sword. Brianna pulled Kaedlaw from inside her cloak.
Avner’s face went pale. “No, Majesty!”
“Take him!”
Brianna thrust the infant into Avner’s free arm, then lost sight of the pair as she was dragged up the devastated stairwell. She tried to twist free, but her captor’s grip was secure. She clutched at the wall and succeeded only in bloodying her fingertips.
The fiend pulled her into the rubble-strewn temple, where the odor of blood hung so thick the air smelled like liquid copper. Heaps of mangled armor lay everywhere, often with the groaning remnant of a shattered body still twitching inside. One man lay upon the broken altar, the crimson head of the queen’s faith spear protruding from his punctured breastplate.
Brianna stretched her fingertips toward the spear. “My goddess, help me!”
“The gods won’t answer, child. It is by their will that I have come for you,” rumbled her captor. “Now you must be quiet and save your strength. You have suffered much, and it is a long journey to my Vale.”
“Twilight!” Brianna gasped. “No!”
A wave of cold air rolled down the queen’s back as the Twilight Spirit pulled her through the shattered window casement. The keep walls spun out of sight, and Brianna found herself staring into a purple face as large and murky as the darkening sky. Seen from a distance of a mile or two, the titan’s square features and even proportions might have been handsome, but from so close, the visage was hideous in its very hugeness. His shadowy brow overhung his eyes like a parapet hoarding, his nose jutted out like a cliff buttress, and from his cavernous mouth wafted a breeze as cold and stale as a tomb’s breath.
“Where is your child?” The titan’s angry voice shook Brianna to the core, setting her ears to ringing and her stomach to quivering. “What have you done with my nephew?”
