The Giant Among Us

10

A long, uncanny trumpeting trilled over the glacier, at once as shrill as a wyvern’s cry and as full as a dragon’s roar. Tavis stopped walking and ran his eyes over the milky miles of snow ahead. He saw the dark crags of a few scattered peaks poking through the ice, but otherwise the terrain looked exactly as it was: a vast, barren sheet of snow and ice thick enough to bury entire mountains.

“I didn’t call for no rest,” growled Slagfid. He shoved Tavis after Bodvar, who was breaking trail through six feet of fresh snow. “Keep going.”

Tavis limped forward again, as anxious as Slagfid to maintain a steady pace. The scout judged the magic would fade from his runemask no later than dawn, returning him to firbolg form. Before then, he had to reach the frost giant camp, learn where Hagamil was meeting Julien and Arno, and slip safely away. To complicate matters, he had no idea how much farther he had to travel. Glaciers like this one could swallow entire mountain ranges, spanning distances so huge that even giants could not cross them easily. The war party might not reach camp until after Hagamil had fallen asleep for the night, and Slagfid would hardly be anxious to awaken his chief and report a botched mission.

Despite his mangled toe, Tavis soon caught up to Bodvar and had to slow his pace. Although the snow was barely knee deep, it was heavy and wet, and Bodvar had been breaking trail for most of the journey. The warrior’s breath came in wheezes and gasps, and his legs were so weak that he had to catch his balance with each step.

The scout looked back at Slagfid. “Bodvar can barely walk,” he said. “The rest of our journey will go faster if someone else breaks trail.”

“Bodvar wouldn’t be breaking trail if he’d held onto that traell, like I told him,” Slagfid growled. “But you’ve got me in trouble, too. You can break trail if you want.”

Tavis made no move to accept the frost giant’s offer. “You’ve seen my toe. I’d spend more time floundering than breaking trail.” He did not add that the effort of impersonating a stone giant had left him nearly as exhausted as Bodvar. The muscles in the scout’s legs were quivering like aspen leaves, and his breathing was so heavy he could hardly see through the curtain of white vapor rising from his mouth. “Call Egarl up. He should have come back to look for us.”

“That’s for me to decide.” Slagfid eyed Tavis suspiciously. “I don’t see why you’re in such a hurry, Sharpnose. After losing that bow, Hagamil’s going to be no happier to see you than Bodvar.”

“I’m not frightened of Hagamil,” Tavis replied.

“Then you’re a fool,” Slagfid snorted.

Seeing that the frost giant would not be swayed, the scout limped after Bodvar. Slagfid was right about one thing: Tavis was a fool. Since learning where ice diamonds really came from, the scout had told himself the same thing at least a hundred times. He wanted to gouge out his eyes for not seeing that Arlien was a fake, and to tear off his own ears for failing to hear the ring of falsehood in the man’s silky voice. What a chuckle the prince must have had when Tavis warned him to be wary of Cuthbert!

Arlien would probably be with Julien and Arno when they delivered Brianna to the frost giants. If so, the scout would make the prince pay for his treachery.

As he contemplated his vengeance, Tavis’s stomach began to burn. He would have no weapons when he returned to firbolg form. His broken sword still lay back at Shepherd’s Nightmare, and Avner had his bow and quiver.

Fortunately, unless the youth had undergone an unexpected change of character, Avner wasn’t likely to return to Cuthbert Castle as instructed. He was far more likely to follow the scout onto the glacier. Assuming he didn’t freeze to death or fall into a hidden crevasse, Tavis would actually be grateful for the boy’s disobedience.

Another eerie trumpet rolled over the ice, reminding Tavis of the most significant danger to Avner. Plenty of creatures made their homes on glaciers, many of them predators. If one of the beasts happened to catch the youth’s scent… the scout saw no use in picturing what would happen.

Ahead of Tavis, Bodvar suddenly pulled up short. “Praise Thrym!” he puffed. “A rider.”

The frost giant was looking toward a nearby nunatak, one of the craggy stone peaks that occasionally jutted up through the surface of the glacier. A deep trench encircled the pinnacle, for during the day the spire’s dark rock gathered enough heat from the sun to melt the ice around it. Like the mountainous nunatak itself, the hollow was huge, easily the size of a small canyon, and lumbering out of that icy gorge was the hulking, shaggy form of a woolly mammoth.

The creature seemed remarkably small, perhaps because of the young frost giant riding him. The youth’s legs easily straddled the beast’s huge back, his feet dangling almost to the ground. The scene reminded Tavis of a human child riding the family sheepdog.

“Hey, you!” Bodvar waved at the distant youth. “Come break trail for us!”

Slagfid offered no objection to the request, perhaps because he sensed Bodvar could not continue much longer.

The young rider stopped and peered toward the war party. His mount dug its saber-curved tusks into the ice and gouged a large cake from the glacier.

“Who’s that?” the youth called.

“It’s Bodvar, with Slagfid and his war party.”

The boy’s mount wrapped its pendulous trunk around the ice it had gouged free, then flung the block at something behind it that Tavis could not see. A bloodthirsty howl echoed off the snow. The mammoth lurched forward, raising its hairy trunk to voice an angry bugle. The two calls combined to create the eerie trumpeting Tavis had heard before.

Unconcerned by the strange noise, the young giant grabbed his mount’s ear and yanked it around, guiding the beast down the glacier to meet the war party. The scout noticed a pair of poles running from the creature’s saddle toward the ground behind it, where the rods were lashed to the sides of a narrow, chitinous head with bulbous black eyes and a muzzle full of sharp fangs.

Tavis saw a pair of spiny head-wings flare out from the sides of the ghastly face, and he suddenly understood the mammoth’s nervous behavior. The beast behind it was a remorhaz, one of the most vicious and brutal of all glacial predators. The monster’s body resembled that of a twenty-foot centipede, with blue segmented sections and two dozen sticklike legs ending in razor-sharp claws. The thing was scuttling along behind the mammoth, hissing madly and flailing at the mammoth’s tail with its face tentacles. Only the poles lashed to its head prevented the ravenous creature from hamstringing the mammoth and devouring it on the spot.

Slagfid pushed by Tavis and took Bodvar’s place at the head of the line. When the youth arrived, he reached down to scratch the mammoth’s woolly ear. “My thanks, Frith.”

“Your thanks are nice,” said Frith. The boy was young enough that he still had a slender face, with the yellow fuzz of his first beard sprouting on his chin. “A new axe would be better.”

Slagfid nodded. “I’ll see that Bodvar gives you one.” He peered over the mammoth’s rump at the hissing remorhaz. “I see you’ve got yourself a nice little ice worm.”

Frith nodded proudly and motioned at the nunatak behind him. “I’ve been keeping him down there.” The youth peered down the war party’s line. “You got that Tavis Burdun-alive, I mean? We could throw him to the worm and have us some fun.”

“No, Gavorial killed Tavis Burdun,” Slagfid reported.

“Too bad,” said Frith. “We’ve got an ogre back at camp, but you know how fast he’ll go. Hagamil could use the fun tonight.”

Slagfid winced. “He’s in a bad mood, is he?”

Frith nodded. “And it’ll be worse if I don’t get back there.” The boy yanked on his mammoth’s ear, turning the beast up the glacier. “Don’t get too close to my worm. He’s hungry.”

Slagfid stepped back, allowing the remorhaz to slink into the trail behind the mammoth. With only seven body segments, the creature was not particularly large, but it was definitely hungry. The white stripe down its back had turned bright pink from the heat of its appetite.

Once the ice worm had scuttled past, Slagfid reluctantly started up the trail. With the remorhaz hissing and growling at its tail, the mammoth moved at a brisk pace, plowing through the heavy snow as though it weighed as much as a cloud. Within half an hour, the frost giants were all huffing from the exertion of staying close to the beast. Bodvar and Tavis could not keep pace, even with Slagfid threatening to unleash the remorhaz on them. They soon found themselves being dragged along by a pair of bitterly complaining helpers.

After an excruciating length of time, they came to an uneven ring of nunataks formed by the rim of an ancient volcano. Frith slowed his mammoth and commanded, “Call.”

The beast raised its trunk and let out a long, wavering trumpet The sound was answered by a tremendous chorus of similar calls from inside the ring. A frost giant sentry appeared on the summit of a nunatak and waved the war party on.

Frith led the way across a narrow isthmus of snow between two nunatak hollows, then the group emerged in the volcano’s snow-filled caldera. The frost giants had made camp in the heart of the crater, around a flat area that could only be a frozen lake.

The encampment was one of the coldest and loneliest places the scout had ever visited. The frost giants sat in the frigid moonlight in groups of two or three, conversing in quiet tones or not speaking at all. Most of the children were already asleep, lying in beds of fresh snow or, at most, a small shelter dug into a steep slope. The mammoths were gathered at one end of the lake, near a deep pit they had gouged through the ice. There was no fire or light anywhere.

As Frith guided his mammoth down the slope, several of the giants below pointed toward Slagfid’s war party. A gentle murmur started to build. Drowsy children roused themselves from their beds, wiping the sleep from their eyes with handfuls of snow. The entire tribe drifted toward the far end of the caldera, where the mouth of a huge cavern yawned in an ice cliff.

Slagfid’s face grew increasingly stormy as the procession crept toward the cavern. Finally, when Frith reached the bottom of the slope, Slagfid clasped a burly hand around Tavis’s arm.

“All those giants expect to see Tavis Burdun’s body, Sharpnose. They’re not going to be happy about taking your word for what happened,” the frost giant growled. “So you’d better tell your story well, or Hagamil’s liable to feed us both to Frith’s worm.”

“I’m sure you have a much better idea of what they want to hear,” Tavis said, realizing it would be impossible for him to tell a convincing tale. “Why don’t you recount events for me?”

Slagfid’s lip twisted into a disdainful sneer. “I imagine you’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

The frost giant thrust Tavis’s hand away, then turned and stomped off toward the cavern. The scout stood where he was, too preoccupied to follow.

Bodvar clamped a reassuring hand on Tavis’s shoulder. “Don’t worry. It won’t be as tough as he makes out,” said the giant. “You’re a stone giant. Nobody’ll notice if you lie a little-especially about how we lost the traell and the bow.”

Bodvar started forward, pulling Tavis along. By the time they reached the ice cave, a sharp blue light was glowing from the interior. Frith dismounted and set to work loosing the remorhaz poles from his saddle. Slagfid motioned for Tavis and Bodvar to come inside, then ducked through the entrance.

When the scout followed, he found himself standing inside a vast ice vault. Long, spiraling icicles depended from the arched ceiling, many with jagged ends where the tips had been knocked off by careless passersby. The frost giants stood along the sides of the chamber, around a deep pit hewn into the floor. The listless, hunch-shouldered figure of an ogre sat in the bottom of the hole, his claws reduced to bloody nubs by long hours of clawing at the walls of his icy prison.

At the far end of the room stood the tribal shaman. He was a haggard, one-eyed giant with yellow patterns tattooed on his bald head and the fur of a white mammoth pulled tight around his chest. In his gaunt hand he carried a brilliantly glowing scepter that supplied the only light in the cavern.

Slagfid stopped at the near edge of the ice pit. “Halflook, fetch me Hagamil,” he demanded. “Tell him that Slagfid has returned with good tidings!”

Halflook’s red-veined gaze darted from Slagfid to Bodvar to Tavis, the muscles of the empty socket working as though it still contained an eyeball. The shaman let his attention rest on the scout and shook his scepter several times, and blue reflections danced wildly across the cavern walls.

“Good tidings, you say,” Halflook echoed. His gaze drifted toward the cavern mouth, growing distant and unfocused. “Perhaps better than you know.”

Slagfid shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Enough of your babble,” he growled. “Get me Hagamil.”

“As you wish.”

Halflook’s eye rolled back in its socket, then his chin tipped into the air and his tongue rose out his mouth, dancing between his lips like the winged head of a remorhaz.

“I welcome your return, Slagfid.” The voice that rumbled from the shaman’s mouth was deeper and more gravelly than the one Tavis had heard earlier. “We’ve all been awaiting you.”

When Halflook’s head tipped forward again, Tavis was astonished to see a piercing blue eye in each socket. The giant’s face suddenly looked much fuller, and his gaunt body seemed stout and robust. Even the tattoos on his bald pate were changing before the scout’s eyes, sprouting into long yellow braids.

A pair of comely giantesses wrapped in sleeping robes appeared out of the shadows. They flanked the giant on both sides, casting arrogant glances at the other females in the room.

The giant ignored the women and ordered, “Tell me of your journey, Slagfid.”

“Hagamil, I have won much honor for us,” said Slagfid.

An approving murmur rustled through the cavern, and Hagamil demanded, “So all went well?”

Slagfid hesitated, his gaze dropping to the ogre in the pit “In the end, yes,” he said. “But Tavis Burdun was not alone. He left a mighty traell warrior in the canyon to defend his back trail.”

A dubious scowl crept down Hagamil’s face. “What warrior?”

“We call him Little Dragon,” Slagfid replied.

Tavis was glad Avner was not listening to this. The boy was vain enough without hearing a frost giant call him a mighty warrior.

“While we were in the canyon, his boulders fell like hail on our heads,” Slagfid continued. “My warriors could hardly move.”

This drew a round of guffaws from the other giants.

“Little Dragon is a fiercer warrior than Tavis Burdun!” Slagfid bellowed. He silenced his fellows with an angry glare. “Tavis Burdun does not cast trees down upon your head, or send crashing floodwaters to sweep you away!”

“And Little Dragon did all this?” demanded Hagamil.

“I tell you, Little Dragon’s magic is as powerful as his arm,” said Slagfid. “He always strikes by surprise. You never know when he will appear-isn’t that so, Bodvar?”

Bodvar gave an emphatic nod. “Compared to Little Dragon, Tavis Burdun is like a calf to a bull mammoth.”

Hagamil looked doubtful. “And how many warriors did you lose to this traell bull?”

Slagfid straightened his shoulders. “None.”

“None?” Hagamil roared. “Why not? Were you afraid to join battle with this fierce pebble-hurler?”

A chorus of nervous laughter rolled through the cavern.

“I was not afraid to catch him!” Slagfid bellowed. He waited for the room to fall quiet, then added, “Or to save Sharpnose from the flood he unleashed.”

The frost giant looked to Tavis for confirmation. The scout remained silent. He had no wish to cast doubt on Slagfid’s exaggeration, but feared his cracking voice would do more to arouse suspicions than to quell them.

Hagamil gave Tavis a look that suggested he did not consider Gavorial’s salvation a good thing. Before the chieftain could say anything, a loud clatter arose at the cavern entrance.

Tavis looked over his shoulder to see Frith backing into the chamber, followed closely by the hissing remorhaz. The young giant was controlling the beast by means of the two long poles harnessed to the creature’s chitinous head, but that did not prevent the ice worm from striking at its handler. So powerful was the creature that the lunge rocked Frith on his heels.

The remorhaz was quick to press its advantage, thrashing wildly as it pushed itself into the cave. Frith slid across the icy floor, grunting and cursing as he tried in vain to get his legs under him. If Slagfid had not laid a hand on the young giant’s back, the beast would have pushed him into the pit.

Hagamil’s laughter echoed through the chamber. He handed the glowing scepter to one of the giantesses and came forward to inspect the beast. The chieftain was even larger than he had seemed from across the pit. He stood a full head taller than Slagfid, with a barrel chest as big around as a mammoth.

“A spirited worm, as promised.” Hagamil laid a hand on one of the poles Frith used to control the ice worm, then a crafty smile creased his lips. He turned to Slagfid and said, “It will be interesting to see how Little Dragon fares against it”

Bodvar’s eyes flashed in alarm. He opened his mouth to speak, but Slagfid cut him off with a curt wave of the hand.

“We can’t throw little Dragon into the pit until we’ve feasted him,” Slagfid objected. “He has earned a happy death.”

Hagamil glared at the smaller giant, then jerked his hand away from the remorhaz’s probing face tentacles. There were red welts where the worm had touched his white skin, but the chieftain showed no sign of pain.

“If Little Dragon is as great as you say, we will feast him after he kills the worm,” Hagamil said. “Otherwise, he doesn’t deserve such an honor.”

Slagfid inclined his head, yielding to the chieftain’s logic. “If you wish,” he said. “But we should let the ogre fight first. Otherwise, we’ll miss half the fun.”

Hagamil smiled, then clasped an affable hand on Slagfid’s shoulder. “A good idea,” he said. “And you can tell me about Tavis Burdun while Sjolf and Snorri fetch a chain and spear for the ogre.”

The chieftain motioned to two warriors. They reluctantly turned to leave, grumbling about having to work while Slagfid related his story.

As the pair left, Slagfid said, “The honor of telling that story is not rightfully mine.” He grabbed Tavis’s arm and pulled him forward. “Sharpnose killed Tavis Burdun.”

A dark cloud descended over Hagamil’s face. “Is that so?”

Tavis met the chieftain’s gaze, but said nothing. Slagfid was hardly being noble. By gallantly sharing the credit, the wily leader was simply trying to make his superior angry enough to forget about Little Dragon. The scout would have been happy to cooperate, had it been possible to do so without lying.

“Well?” Hagamil demanded. “Did you kill him?”

“You may claim that honor for yourself,” Tavis responded. “I give it to you as a gift.”

Hagamil blinked twice, then shook his head in confusion. “You what?”

“The honor was to belong to your tribe. I return it to you, if you wish to claim it,” Tavis said. “It will not be written in the Chronicles of Stone that Gavorial killed Tavis Burdun.”

The frost giant considered this with a skeptical frown, then asked, “So you weren’t trying to steal it from us?”

Tavis shook his head. “Never,” he said. “The battle started, and I did what was necessary.”

A smile started to creep across Hagamil’s lips, but it abruptly turned to a snarl. “What do you want for this ‘gift’?”

The scout smiled, thinking it might be easier than he had anticipated to learn the location of the rendezvous. “A small boon,” he said. “Tell me where you are meeting Julien and Arno.”

Hagamil rubbed his chin, then shrugged and gave Tavis a sharp-toothed smile. “Done,” he said. “When they send word-”

“They have already sent word,” Tavis interrupted. “I want to know where you’re meeting them tomorrow.”

Hagamil’s grin faded. “How’d you find out about that?”

Without waiting for a reply, the chieftain cast an angry glare at Slagfid, who could only shrug and shake his head.

“It’s nothing that should be kept secret,” Tavis said. “All giants deserve the honor of escorting Brianna to Twilight”

“And that’s why you want to be there?” Hagamil demanded.

“I have no intention of claiming that I killed Tavis Burdun, if that’s what concerns you.”

As he spoke, Tavis silently congratulated himself. Until now, he had only been assuming that the giants intended to take the queen to Twilight. Hagamil had just confirmed his guess.

Sjolf and Snorri returned, carrying a set of rusty shackles, a wooden spear, and a long log with steps carved into it. Giving the ice worm wide berth, they lowered one end of the crude ladder into the pit.

Hagamil watched the first giant start down the log, then looked back to Tavis. “Okay. Give me Tavis’s body.”

“There is no corpse,” Tavis answered.

“What?” Hagamil bellowed. “How can there be no corpse?”

“The battle was fierce, and firbolgs are not so large,” the scout replied. “When the fighting was over, all of Tavis Burdun that lay on the tundra were a few drops of blood.”

“Sharpnose smashed him,” elaborated Bodvar.

Hagamil turned toward the warrior. “If you were close enough to see the fight, why didn’t you kill Tavis Burdun?”

Bodvar looked away. “I didn’t see the fight,” he admitted. “Just the proof.”

“You have proof?” Hagamil said. “Let me have that, then.”

Tavis reached inside his robe and withdrew his empty sword belt and mottled cloak, all that he still possessed of his gear. Hagamil snatched the tiny scraps and held them up to his enormous eye.

“What are these rags?” he demanded.

“Tavis Burdun’s sword belt and cloak,” Tavis replied.

“This isn’t proof!” Hagamil roared.

The frost giant flung the belt and cloak in the general direction of the remorhaz. The beast’s head pivoted and lashed out, snatching both items from the air. It swallowed them down in a single gulp, then licked its lips with a glowing red tongue and lunged at Frith one more time.

“Sharpnose had more,” whispered Bodvar. “He had that long bow, Bear Driller, and the quiver with the golden arrow.”

“Had?” Hagamil growled. “What happened to them?”

“I had them before the traells ambushed us,” Tavis said.

“You were ambushed?” Hagamil demanded, looking at Slagfid.

“Just them.” The leader pointed at Tavis and Bodvar. “Sharpnose saved Bodvar’s life. That’s when he lost the bow and quiver.”

Hagamil’s face turned as blue as a sapphire. He whirled on Bodvar and yelled, “Sharpnose lost Bear Driller to save your miserable life?”

The warrior stumbled back, his eyes wide with terror. “I–I-I didn’t ask him t-to.”

“It-doesn’t-matter!” The chieftain was so angry that he could barely sputter the words.

Hagamil’s massive hand lashed out and clamped onto Bodvar’s ear. For a moment, Tavis thought the angry giant would rip the thing off, but the chieftain’s intentions were far more deadly. He flung the elbow of his opposite arm into the side of Bodvar’s head, twisting his hips forward to hurl the full force of his weight into the blow.

A tremendous crack echoed through the cavern, as deep as a drumbeat and as sharp as a thunderclap. Bodvar’s nostrils and ears began to pour blood, then his limp body slipped from Hagamil’s grasp and collapsed in a heap. The warrior’s mouth was still gaping open, astonished at the speed with which death had descended upon him.

Hagamil whirled on Tavis next, reaching for his throat The scout raised his arms inside the chieftain’s wrists and knocked the menacing hands away, then drove the heel of his palm into the giant’s chin. The blow would have launched any other giant off his feet, but it merely shoved Hagamil’s jaw out of socket.

The chieftain did not counterattack. A blank look suddenly replaced his angry mask, then his eyes rolled back in their sockets. The lids fluttered wildly, and one eyeball slowly sank out of sight behind his cheekbone. The yellow hair braids dropped from his head and writhed away like snakes, until they were plucked up and swallowed when they ventured too close to the remorhaz. The frost giant’s massive shoulders slumped forward, his milky skin grew pallid and yellow, and Tavis found himself looking at the gaunt, one-eyed form of the shaman.

Halflook raised a bony hand to his dislocated jaw and popped it back into place. After opening and closing his mouth a few times, he fixed his bloodshot eye on Tavis and gave him a snaggletoothed grin.

“It’s been a long time since someone struck Hagamil,” Halflook said. “Much less knocked him unconscious.”

“Yeah, but we can’t bait the worm without Hagamil! What do we do now?”

The question came from the pit, where Sjolf and Snorri stood with the haggard ogre stretched between them. Although ogres stood half again as tall as humans, this one seemed as small as he did forlorn. He was about the size of a frost giant’s leg, though not nearly so big around, with hunched shoulders and long, gangling arms. His loutish face was as pale as ivory, and his jutting chin trembled so badly that his tusks looked as if they might shake loose. The wooden spear had been thrust into his hand like a cruel joke, and the rusty shackles had been fastened to his ankles like an anchor.

“Is the baiting off?” asked one of the giants-Tavis did not know whether it was Sjolf or Snorri.

Halflook shook his head. “Why would it be?” he demanded. “Doesn’t Halflook deserve some fun?”

The giants answered with a hearty chorus of approval. Halflook smiled and took Tavis’s arm. He started toward the far end of the chamber, where several seats had been carved into the edge of the pit.

“You also deserve some fun, my friend,” he said. “Killing Tavis Burdun could not have been easy.”

“The battle was desperate,” Tavis replied. “But I have no interest in worm-baiting. If you’ll honor Hagamil’s agreement and tell me where you’re meeting Julien and Arno, I’ll be on my way.”

Halflook stopped and raised his brow, his single eye twinkling with a knowing light. “Hagamil promised you that?”

“He did,” Tavis replied.

The shaman shook his head regretfully. “I can’t help you. Hagamil has told me no more than anyone else: We are to break camp tomorrow, and he will lead us to the rendezvous.” Halflook worked his bruised jaw back and forth, then added, “And I wouldn’t advise you to wait and ask him. He’ll be in a foul mood when he returns.”

Halflook started forward again, but Tavis did not follow.

The shaman looked back, and a reassuring smile slid across his cracked lips. “Come along, Sharpnose. You’ve nothing to fear from me, and Hagamil won’t be back until morning.” His gaze drifted toward the cavern exit and again grew distant and unfocused. “Besides, there’s a surprise coming-one you won’t want to miss.”

Tavis glanced toward the exit and saw nothing except the sable night. Nevertheless, he followed Halflook to one of the seats of honor, quite sure that the shaman would not let him leave now even if he insisted. One of Hagamil’s concubines threw a mammoth fur down on Tavis’s chair, then held his arm so that he didn’t slip as he lowered himself into the icy seat. Even through the thick fur the scout felt the cold creeping into his weary bones. Halflook sat beside his guest, directly on the ice.

In the bottom of the pit, the ogre now stood alone, his neck craned back and his beady, bewildered eyes running over the enormous faces gaping down at him. The last of his two captors was just stepping off the log ladder onto the chamber’s main floor. Slagfid and another warrior had taken hold of the remorhaz’s harness poles and were holding the writhing beast over the pit. Frith stood next to them, grasping a long halberd, which he would use to slice the harness.

Halflook leaned over to Tavis. “I know stone giants find these things boring, so perhaps we should make a wager,” he suggested. “Having something at stake does liven things up.”

“What kind of wager?” Tavis asked. He had little interest in watching the cruel contest and even less in wagering on it, but he knew the shaman had a good reason for proposing a bet

“Do you think the ogre will injure the remorhaz before he dies?” Halflook asked.

Tavis studied the frightened prisoner for a moment. He bore no love for ogres-they were a brutal, wicked race-but he had learned to respect them. In desperate circumstances, they were especially spirited, and they possessed a certain animal cunning that would prove useful in a battle such as this.

“The ogre won’t last long,” Tavis decided. “But he’ll draw blood.”

“Good,” replied the shaman. “Then that’s our wager.”

“And the stakes?” Tavis asked.

“If he fails to draw blood, you tell me how you and Bodvar really lost Bear Driller and Little Dragon,” said the shaman.

“How did you know we lost Little Dragon?” Tavis’s heart was beginning to pound with cold apprehension. “No one said that”

The shaman smiled. “Is that really what you wish to know if you win?”

“No, of course not.” Tavis exhaled slowly, trying to calm himself and keep his face relaxed. “If the ogre draws blood, you’ll tell me how to find the rendezvous.”

“Why is the rendezvous so important to you?” Halflook asked.

“Why is it so important to you that only frost giants accompany Brianna to Twilight?” the scout countered.

Halflook smiled crookedly. “I had not thought stone giants so covetous of such honors,” he said. “But I was speaking truly when I said only Hagamil knows. The best I can do is give you safe passage and one of Bodvar’s bulls to ride. Then, perhaps, you could trail us at a safe distance. Our path will not be so hard to follow.”

“Perhaps you could heal my toe instead,” Tavis suggested. “I’d prefer to walk.”

Halflook chuckled at this. “Do you really want me to use frost magic on your stony toe?” he asked. “Or have you never seen how ice can break rocks apart?”

“Perhaps I will accept the mammoth,” the scout replied.

“A wise decision.”

The shaman looked to the other end of the chamber, where Sjolf and Snorri were pulling the log ladder from the pit. The remorhaz was growling more viciously than ever, while the ogre was dragging his chains across the pit so that he would be in position to attack as soon as the beast fell.

Halflook nodded to Frith. “Release the worm.”

The young giant reached out and ran the halberd blade across the worm’s harness. After a moment of slicing, the hide strap came apart and the remorhaz slipped into the pit amidst a clatter of legs and chitin.

The ogre lurched forward, his heavy chains clanging against the ice. The remorhaz whirled on him. The brutish prisoner swung his spear like a club, striking the worm’s throat with a sharp crack. The creature’s sinuous neck crackled and folded around the heft, then the beast’s body went slack. For an instant Tavis thought the captive might have won the fight in a single blow. Then, as deep-throated murmurs of disappointment began to echo through the chamber, the ice worm whipped its rear segments forward, slamming its heavy tail into the ogre.

The prisoner sailed across the pit and crashed into an icy wall. The air left his lungs in a loud huff, then the spear dropped from his grasp. He slid down the wall in a limp heap and lay there wheezing, his weapon lying a hand’s length beyond his fingertips.

The giants shook the cavern with their cheers. The remorhaz approached cautiously, its neck-wings flapping and its black eyes fixed on the ogre. The worm stopped just out of the captive’s reach and stretched its face tentacles toward the spear.

The ogre stopped wheezing and snatched his spear up, slashing the tip at his foe’s bulbous eyes. The remorhaz jerked back, then the captive was on his feet and thrusting at the beast’s chitinous throat. The ice worm slipped the blow with a well-timed curl of the neck and countered with a lightning-fast head strike.

The ogre blocked with a slap of his weapon’s shaft, then dodged behind the worm’s head wing. Taking the spear in both hands, he raised the tip high over the white streak on the beast’s back.

Even as the spear began its descent, Tavis knew the ogre had made his first mistake. To keep themselves from freezing in the icy wastes, remorhazes generated as much internal heat as red dragons, and their blood was as hot as molten stone. When the spear pierced the worm, a geyser of white fire spewed from the hole. The wooden shaft dissolved into a wisp of smoke.

The astonished ogre bellowed in agony. He raised his hands to his seared face and stumbled away. The ice worm leaped instantly to the attack, trapping the agonized brute beneath its chitinous bulk. The remorhaz curled its head under its bulk to finish its prey, but even then the captive put up a valiant fight The worm’s serpentine body continued to squirm for several moments before it finally raised its bloody maw to bugle its victory cry.

The giants shouted in glee, filling the chamber with such a clamor that several icicles broke off the ceiling and crashed down on their heads. Halflook leaned over to Tavis.

Almost shouting to make himself heard above the din, the giant said, “I believe you owe me an explanation, Sharpnose.”

“I think not,” Tavis replied.

The scout pointed at the underside of the remorhaz’s sinuous neck, where a chitinous scale had been torn away during the battle. A broken ogre tusk protruded from the beast’s throat, and a thin red line of steaming blood rimmed the puncture.

“You owe me a mammoth.”

Halflook’s mouth twisted into half a dozen different kinds of snarls. His red-veined eye remained fixed on the tusk until the remorhaz finished its victory call, then he looked back to Tavis and reluctantly nodded his head.

“So I see,” he said.

“If you’ll have someone show me how to ride it, I’ll be on my way.”

Tavis hoisted himself from his seat and climbed onto the main floor. The cold had seeped deep into his joints, so that the effort of standing sent an icy ache through his entire body. He felt more exhausted than ever, and sickened by the spectacle he had been forced to watch.

Halflook also stood, stepping to the scout’s side. “Stay a moment longer, I beg you.” The shaman’s eye turned toward the cavern exit and once again acquired that distant, unfocused look. “The surprise is almost here.”

“I’ve seen enough for one night,” the scout replied. “I’m in no mood for surprises.”

“Not even this one?”

The shaman pointed toward the exit, where a tall frost giant was stepping into the chamber. Although Tavis had not gotten much of a look at the sentry earlier, this warrior appeared to be about the same size and build.

“You’re looking too high.” Halflook’s bloodshot eye was locked onto Tavis’s face as though connected to it. “The surprise is much farther down, near the floor.”

Tavis lowered his gaze. For several moments, he saw nothing but the enormous, booted feet of frost giants. Then, as the sentry pushed his way deeper into the cave, the scout glimpsed a small, shivering form among the massive legs: Avner.