by Troy Denning
It took only a few minutes for the tower to vanish behind the driving snow. For a while, Brianna kept her bearings by traveling parallel to the advancing line of clouds, but it was not long before they had drawn a formless gray shroud across the entire sky. The thunder grew deafening, and graupel-hard pellets of rain quick-frozen into snow-hammered down on the ground. Silvery flashes of lightning danced all around the field. The queen struggled blindly onward, cringing in terror and shivering with bone-aching cold, praying Lanaxis would catch her soon.
The thought occurred to Brianna that perhaps dawn had weakened the titan more than she knew. Certainly, after thousands of years of constant twilight, full daylight would be excruciatingly painful. But the queen saw no reason it would paralyze or cripple her captor. Even after the sun had seared away his gloomy cloak, Lanaxis’s ancient body had looked healthy enough to hobble after her.
The wind stopped as suddenly as it had started. A pearly white cloud separated from the gray mass above and slowly descended, still pounding the field with a torrent of graupel. The dark forest appeared through the storm, its skyline jagged and irregular with broken trees. The village lay off to the left, the leeward sides of the demolished manor and several huts now stripped of snow. Hundreds of birds large and small were streaming over the ruins into the field, filling the air with a cacophony of screeches and squawks and blood-chilling shrieks. The storm giants would arrive soon; according to the legends, the birds were their harbingers.
From behind Brianna came the muffled crunch of compacting snow. She felt the powdery stuff settling around her hips, then suddenly found herself standing in Lanaxis’s hand. As he lifted her into the air, the queen had to grab his thumb to keep from sliding off his slick palm. The titan twisted his wrist around so that she found herself staring up his sloping nose into his single good eye.
“Insolent child!” The words flew from his cavernous mouth on a dank, warm wind. “You would risk my nephew’s life in a thunder-snow?”
The pearly white cloud descending from above settled over their heads, filling the air with a cold fog so thick Brianna could barely see her captor’s face. The birds arrived in the same instant, their screeching silhouettes streaking through the thick mist like black ghosts. There were many different species-eagles, owls, warblers, even a condor-all cackling or hooting or chirping in melancholy voices.
Brianna watched the display for a moment, then remembered herself and tore her gaze away. She glanced over the edge of Lanaxis’s hand and slid toward the brink as though she intended to jump.
The titan’s fingers tightened around her legs. “I cannot believe you would be so stupid.”
A cold knot formed in Brianna’s stomach, and she wondered if she had overplayed her ploy. “Better to die for freedom than live in captivity.”
“Kaedlaw is free!” The titan’s bellow would have blasted Brianna from his palm had she not been holding his thumb. “He is emperor of Ostoria. No one can be more free.”
“If that were so, you would let us go,” Brianna said. “Let me raise him in his own home.” “So the filthy giant-kin can slay him?” The white cloud was lifting, and Brianna could see the titan’s desiccated lips curled in derision. “Or do you think your puny citadel can stand against their hordes until he reaches manhood?”
“Why not?” she demanded. “So far, we have held your giants at bay easily enough.”
Lanaxis shook his head. “The gods have decreed Twilight his new home. They have chosen me to raise him, to mold him into a wise and powerful emperor.”
“They gave him to me first,” Brianna countered. “I am his mother, or have you forgotten?”
“You?” Lanaxis’s breath had turned as sharp and caustic as brimstone. “You are no more to him than a nursemaid. Once he is weaned, he will be done with you.”
A searing anger swelled inside Brianna. She suddenly felt her dagger hilt in her hand and saw no reason to restrain herself.
If Lanaxis felt the blade slash his thumb, he showed no sign. He merely turned toward the queen’s tower, where six pale figures stood waiting, barely visible through the thinning fog. They were large even by the standards of giants-taller than her battered tower-but they seemed mere children compared to the immense titan. Brianna judged that even the biggest would rise no higher than her captor’s chest, and it would have taken all of their number to match his bulk.
As Lanaxis neared the tower, Brianna’s view of the giants improved. All were clean-shaven, with unkempt, blue-black hair cascading over their shoulders. They had solemn, handsomely chiseled faces with gloomy silver eyes, and wan violet skin so pale it was nearly gray. Their simple tunics were belted at their waists, clean but rumpled. Each warrior wore a king’s ransom in silver jewelry, all of it black with tarnish.
The birds were swarming the giants, circling their heads or roosting on their shoulders, sometimes perching on their belts or the pommels of their huge two-handed swords. Save for the constant flutter of wings, the entire flock had fallen as silent as a snowfall. Their eyes were fixed on Brianna and her captor, giving the queen the uneasy feeling that while there was a bird overhead, she would never be out of a storm giant’s sight.
When the titan reached the tower, the six newcomers knelt in the snow and bowed their heads. The air smelled musty and old, and Brianna’s joints began to throb with a cold, damp ache.
“You have called, aged uncle, and we six have answered,” said one giant. He did not look up, and his voice sounded as dismal and languid as a dying man’s. “How may we serve?”
Lanaxis regarded the giants with a cold eye. “You may start by standing, Anastes,” the titan rumbled. “I have summoned you here to amend the wrong committed by your ancient paramount.”
The storm giants turned the color of snow and looked up with uncomprehending eyes. The birds left their shoulders, filling the air with a melancholy din of chirping and trilling. Peals of the thunder rumbled down from the sky, and the graupel sounded like a drum chorus as it hammered the exposed planks of the tower’s third-story floor.
“Stand I say!” Lanaxis ordered. “I did not call you here to brood.”
The giants obeyed, but the wind picked up, and the graupel fell harder than ever.
“Forgive our feelings, ancient uncle. Your news comes as a great shock-as much as we welcome it.” Anastes’s voice sounded anything but happy. “At a time like this, it is difficult for us to control our emotions.”
“Vilmos had no trouble.” Lanaxis cast an impatient glance skyward, then lowered his hand to display Brianna. “Beneath her cloak, this queen carries the new emperor of Ostoria. You will guard her while I sleep-and if you allow anything to become of him-or her-I shall give you reason to storm for centuries.”
Lanaxis stooped down and thrust Brianna into the second-story foyer. When she retreated through the door, she found the room filled with flitting birds. From the chimney flue came a faint scratching sound, which she at first attributed to the birds, but quickly realized was more likely Avner scratching at the mortar in the fireplace below.
Brianna went to a corner and chased a bevy of siskins off the floor, then sat down and opened her cloak to check on Kaedlaw. His face remained round and ugly, but his skin was pink, and the sparkle had returned to his brown eyes. He raised one of his chubby hands toward the queen’s breast. She lifted him to suckle. Nothing came out, and he growled.
Brianna cringed at his gravelly voice, then switched him to the other side. “You’re a hungry one, aren’t you?”
From across the chamber came Anastes’s melancholy voice. “A baby giant does need plenty of milk.”
Brianna’s heart jumped into her throat. The noises in the chimney suddenly sounded dangerously loud, and she had to struggle to keep her gaze from straying toward the fireplace. She looked instead toward the shattered arrow loop, where Anastes’s sad eyes were staring into the room. It seemed unlikely he would hear the faint scratching of Avner’s knife, especially over the hissing wind and t
he fluttering birds. Still, the queen did not know how keen the giant’s ears were, or what he might learn from his pets within the chamber.
Brianna pulled up her cloak to shield Kaedlaw and her partially exposed breast. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m nursing.”
“I’m truly sorry for the intrusion.” Anastes made no move to look away. “And if you’ll forgive me for expressing my concerns, I must say a tiny thing like you will never keep a baby giant fed.”
“Lanaxis thinks I’ll make a fine nursemaid.” Although the scratching had grown no louder, it filled Brianna’s ears like a trumpet blare. “He seems to believe that’s all a mother is good for.”
“I suppose that’s what comes of being born to a mountain.” Anastes was referring to the legend that Lanaxis and his brothers had been born of the mountain goddess Othea. “When one crawls from the birthing cave fully mature and immortal, how can one fathom the soothing balm of a mother’s love?”
“Perhaps you’d better teach him,” Brianna suggested. “Or your new emperor will grow up as warped as your titan.”
A doleful look came to Anastes’s silver eyes. “Would that I could, but we storm giants have already brought misery enough to the world. By trying to change what is destined to be, we can only make things worse.”
“How convenient for you.”
Anastes’s face darkened to sullen blue. The thunder outside growled plaintively, and a flurry of birds flashed past his face. The sulking storm giant looked away, turning his enormous ear to the window.
The queen’s stomach knotted with alarm. She rose and paced across the floor, holding her son to her shoulder as though she were burping him. Kaedlaw immediately growled his protest, filling the chamber with such a rumble that the birds fluttered off their roosts. Even Brianna could no longer hear the scratching in the fireplace.
Anastes turned back to the chamber. “Poor child. The pain of life is so new to him.”
“Perhaps he is cold,” rumbled a second storm giant. “We could strike a fire.”
“No!” Brianna spun around to find a huge gray eye peering through the arrow loop behind her. A pair of brown falcons were roosting on the sill, their cocked heads turned toward the giant. “The chimney’s blocked. We’d choke on the smoke.”
“That’s a small matter to fix,” offered another giant, this one peering through an arrow loop by the chimney. “I’ll have the flue clear in an instant.”
“I don’t want a fire!” Brianna insisted. She doubted the smoke would trouble Avner in the bottom of the chimney, but she didn’t want a giant dropping a stone on the young scout. Besides, the queen suspected she would find it difficult enough to crawl into a flue that was cold. “I’ll only have to put it out when Lanaxis lifts the tower, and even then I’ll have embers flying all over.”
Anastes knitted his brows, but did not argue. “Is there anything we can do to make you more comfortable?”
“What I really need is to eat.” It was the truth, but Brianna also hoped to keep the storm giants busy. “If you want to help, bring me some fresh rye bread, goat’s cheese, and a warm meatcake.”
“There’s a pair of moose in the fen beyond that forest,” rumbled one of the giants. “Wouldn’t they be enough for you?”
Brianna shot an impatient scowl at Anastes. “Do you see my cooks here? Or perhaps you expect me to eat raw moose?”
“Nikol and Ramos can cook them for you,” offered the giant.
“Very well,” Brianna sighed. “But my moose must be slow-roasted on a spit, and cooked through. Of course, I shall need wine to wash it down, a honeycomb to sweeten the flavor, and a bowl of pottage to settle my stomach.”
Anastes paled. “You have demanding tastes, milady.”
“You’re the one who suggested moose,” Brianna reminded him. “I’d be just as happy with my first request-but if that’s too much trouble, perhaps you could keep the milk flowing for your new emperor by feeding me finches and falcons.”
Anastes winced. “No, of course not! We wouldn’t think of such a thing!”
He was speaking more to the birds than to Brianna, but that did not keep the queen’s unwanted guests from leaving the chamber in a squawking flurry. Clearly, the creatures understood more than she would have liked.
Kaedlaw let out an enormous burp and stopped growling. Brianna continued to pace, sliding her feet across the floor to mask the sound of Avner’s work.
“Well?” she demanded. “What shall it be?”
“We will cook the moose,” Anastes sighed. His head rose out of view, then his muffled voice reverberated across the third-story floor. “Nikol and Ramos, you roast the moose. Sebastion, you and Patma find some wine and vegetables for the queen’s pottage. Eusebius, see if the thrushes can guide you to a beehive.”
The giants did not rush off to do their paramount’s bidding.
“Before we go, I would like to behold our new emperor,” said one. “Perhaps we are not worthy of the honor, but it is truly my heart’s desire to lay eyes on him at least this once.”
Brianna started to pull Kaedlaw from beneath her cloak, then thought wiser of it. She might make better use of this boon later.
“The emperor is resting now.”
The storm giants sighed, and a chain of frigid drafts twirled through the chamber. Somewhere above the tower, half-a-dozen hawks voiced a string of forlorn tseers. The wind picked up and whistled past the arrow loops, spinning flurries of graupel into the room, and, save for Anastes, all of Brianna’s captors lumbered off to gather the food she had demanded.
“You are right to deny us, of course.” Anastes looked away, and a peal of long, soft thunder rumbled across the sky. “It is wrong for us even to hope we might lay eyes on one so sublime.”
“And why is that, Anastes?” Brianna was at once sympathetic and impatient with the giant’s self-pity. She went to the shattered arrow loop and stopped there. “What ancient wrong did Lanaxis call you to amend? No deed can be terrible enough to condemn an entire race to such suffering.”
The storm giant lifted his chin and fixed an enormous, woe-filled eye on Brianna. “I fear you are wrong, milady.” His lips trembled with shame. “Our race is to blame for all the misery and suffering on Toril.”
Behind Anastes, forks of lightning lanced down from the gray snow clouds, stabbing at the ground and spewing great plumes of hissing steam into the sky. The birds screeched as though they were dying. The graupel battered the giant’s shoulders so fiercely he grimaced.
“That’s a heavy burden to claim,” Brianna observed. “Are you certain it belongs to your race alone?”
“Oh, yes. There can be no doubt.” Anastes’s voice was growing louder and more pained with each syllable he spoke, once again raising the storm outside to blizzard proportions. “We are the ones who plunged the world into chaos and war. We are the ones who slew Ostoria’s divine ruler, Hartkiller, and drove Annam the All Father from Toril forever!”
The howling winds buffeted the tower so harshly that Brianna had to brace her arm against the wall. “I see!” she shouted. “But did you ever consider that your ancestor might have done other races a favor? Perhaps they had no wish to be ruled by giants.”
Anastes looked aghast, and the storm lulled. “How can you say that?” he demanded. “You, a descendant of Hartkiller!”
“I’m more human than giant,” Brianna reminded him. “I’m glad to rule Hartsvale instead of the giants, and the humans are happy to have me.”
Anastes shook his head in disbelief. “Then you are as foolish as your people,” he declared. “Annam decreed that the giants would rule Toril, not for our sakes, but for the welfare and harmony of all races. By killing Hartkiller, we defied the All Father’s will. We destroyed Ostoria.”
“Now you’re the one who’s being foolish,” Brianna countered. “My runecaster has translated the histories written by the stone giants. I know who destroyed Ostoria, and it wasn’t your ancestor. It was Lanaxis.”
Anastes’
s face went as white as the snow. The birds on his shoulders took flight, and the storm grew so quiet that even the graupel seemed to hang frozen in the sky. The scratching of Avner’s knife hissed loudly in the queen’s ears.
Brianna pinched her son. Kaedlaw responded admirably, filling the chamber with a low, angry growl.
“You mustn’t say such things about Lanaxis,” Anastes warned. “Never!”
“Why not?” Brianna demanded. “Must I tell you the legend? Annam the All Father wanted true giants-his progeny-to rule Toril. But faithless Othea spawned children by many different gods, and she wanted all her offspring to share the world. That’s why she helped one of her lovers unleash the glacier that would one day wipe Ostoria from the land.”
“I know the history of my own people!”
“Then think about it.” Brianna was beginning to hope she could make an ally of the storm giant. When men consumed by false guilt learned the truth, they often turned against those who had abused their emotions. “After Othea forbade Lanaxis from destroying the glacier, he poisoned her, and that made him a murderer. What did he become when he allowed his brother kings to drink the same poison?”
“He loved Ostoria!”
“Lanaxis would not be the only fool to destroy what he loves most,” Brianna replied. “Nor the only one to go mad after he realized what he did.”
Kaedlaw fell silent. Though Brianna could still hear the faint scratching of Avner’s knife, she did nothing to cover the sound. Anastes was lost in thought, and it seemed a worthwhile risk to let him think in peace.
At length, the birds returned to the storm giant’s shoulders, and the wind howled as mournfully as before.
“We still bear the blame for Hartkiller’s death.” Anastes sounded almost relieved. “Lanaxis did not murder him. ”
